Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
