Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “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 difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” 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’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
