Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, 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.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent 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 held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
