Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the 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 fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
