Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, 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 top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
