Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen 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 play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
