Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out 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 eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need 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 “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us 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 disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
