Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play 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.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
