Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed 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.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys 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 team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
