Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it 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 career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
