Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
