Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm 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 TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 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 improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
