Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the 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 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
