Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 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 healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
