Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat 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 need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. 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 rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game 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 previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led 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 down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
