Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent 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 held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
