Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in 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 backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing 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, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
