Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
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 in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
