Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
