Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay 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 statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
