Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes 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 (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow 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 asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
