Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB 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 force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
