Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon 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 loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”