Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not 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 sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
