Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for 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 disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players 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 frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
