Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
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 losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
