Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
