Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more 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 Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
