Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult 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 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
