Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
