Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead 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 force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
