Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“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 losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped 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 consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
