Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with 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 touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
