Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close 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) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult 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 two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game 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 previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought 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 players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
