Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down 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 in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
