Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
