Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up 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 in an awkward manner. 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 more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
