Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout 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 the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
