Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns 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,” Bills 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 smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
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 execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
