Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left 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 personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 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 do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
