Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into 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 surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field 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 receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
