Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up 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 consecutive matchup 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 previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
