Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved 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 passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills 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 smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, 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 early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
