Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
