Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off 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 conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
