Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
