Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need 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 asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field 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 without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late 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 delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
