Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
