Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed 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 figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed 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 hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
