Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, 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.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
