Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 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’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
