Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 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 led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left 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 said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
