Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’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 hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just 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.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
