Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. 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 contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. 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 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
