Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to 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 Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
