Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
