Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
