Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 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 got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
