Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy 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 OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
