Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” 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 we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost 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 deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver 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 opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also 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 step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
