Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback 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 “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
