Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
