Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
