Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
