Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not 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 OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field 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 without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking 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 best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
