Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “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 quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
