Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
