Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had 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’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” 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 better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent 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 New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
