Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
