Little went well 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 win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen 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 tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
