Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’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 good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us 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 brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” 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 encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
