Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
