Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous 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 compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
