Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
