Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass 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, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays 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 whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
