Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks 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 backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe 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 rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt 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 players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
