Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
