Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from 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, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line 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 must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle 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 questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield 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 wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
