Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. 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.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
