Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created 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 opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “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 unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
