Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
