Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
