Little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough 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 threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up 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 healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
