Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
