Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” 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 difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field 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 receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
