Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following 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 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times 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 found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
