Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down 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 force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
