Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it 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 figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening 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 zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
