Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch 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 Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved 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 optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
