Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “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 quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed 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 previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
