Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
