Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night 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.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of 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 in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
