Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing 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 ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
