Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender 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 end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times 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. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
