Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good 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 OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total 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 scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver 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 the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
