Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need 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 two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
