Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy 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 slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
