Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
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 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are 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 optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
