Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out 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 one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought 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 give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
