Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish 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 asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
