Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
