Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it 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 find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head 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 smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
