Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
