Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
