Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 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 the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
