Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
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 awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped 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 receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
