Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
