Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the 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 consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped 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 consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
