Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
