Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral 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 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. 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 asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
