Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. 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. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
