Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good 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 difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
