Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had 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 must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
