Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
