Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory 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 long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. 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 deficit to force a punt early in the third.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
