Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his 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 remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more 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 defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
