Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was 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 threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch 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 late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
