Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. 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 James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
