Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly 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 result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “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 opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
