Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil 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 were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
