Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever 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 play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
