Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking 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.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
