Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes 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 (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, 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,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
