Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
