Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought 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 provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
