Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit 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 compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
