Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
