Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
