Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
