Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
