Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
