Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop 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 Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
