Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are 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.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
