Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough 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. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better 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 top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent 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 opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
