Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
