Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid 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 difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil 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 were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
