Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach 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 players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
