Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
