Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling 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 Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
