Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute 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 defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
