Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe 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.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
