Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better 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 top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
