Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
