Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head 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 preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
