Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “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 guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil 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 Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
