Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
