Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw 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 the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills 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 good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine 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 not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose 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 healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
