Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult 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 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
