Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned 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 disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
