Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass 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 left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
