Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away 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.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering 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 delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
