Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without 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 the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
