Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned 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 throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in 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 tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
