Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
