Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills 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 keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” 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 disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
