Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
