Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon 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 opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
