Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier 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 taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling 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 optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
