Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy 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 additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach 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 optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
