Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
