Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
