Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
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 asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half 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 tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
