Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head 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 quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
