Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need 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 shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total 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 the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
