Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive 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 a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. 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 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
