Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
