Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
