Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
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 previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
