Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased 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 without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”