Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
