Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo 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 team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
