Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach 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 quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his 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 encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
