Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” 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 keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said 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 during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
