Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup 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 first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
