Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier 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 day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
