Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. 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 step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
