Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
