Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
