Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly 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 loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also 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 are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
