Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”