Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played 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 held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
