Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “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 field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also 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 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.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
