Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute 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 the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his 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 remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
