Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen 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 quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
