Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
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 defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just 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.”
Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left 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 encountered a few 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 quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
