Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just 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 slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force 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 previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
