Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
