Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
