Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to 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 flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK 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 during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
