Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force 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 tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
