Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without 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 opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
