Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
