Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB 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 pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks 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 got up 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 consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
