Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
