Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout 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 held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team 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 said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
