Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field 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 Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
