Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw 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. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
