Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ 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 flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
