Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
