Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
