Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. 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 rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
