Very little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his 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 unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re 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 topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
