Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head 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 keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered 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 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
