Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. 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 personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
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 fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
