Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got 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 personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
