Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing 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 hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt 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 provide 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.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
