Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. 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 tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
