Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening 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 ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy 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 indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
