Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “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 difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 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’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver 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 New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
