Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
