Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
