Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
