Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks 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,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit 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 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. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought 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 catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
