Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
