Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to 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 another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack 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 deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
