Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “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 preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total 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 nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
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 situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
