Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night 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 close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased 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 receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt 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 guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen 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 this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
