Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory 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 healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
