Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. 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 “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 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 execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
