Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
