Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said 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 during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo 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 previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
