Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” 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 better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
