Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
