Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed 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 previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
