Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw 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 hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
