Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass 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 said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
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 landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
