Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
