Little went right 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 win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
