Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
