Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
