Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute 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 find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. 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 hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills 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 execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
