Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did 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.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
