Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still 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 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense 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 get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased 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 absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“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 wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
