Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
