Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
