Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm 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 accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
