Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
