Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” 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 figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
