Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback 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 first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed 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 myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
