Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough 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 threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills 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 field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks 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 pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt 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 provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
