Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
