Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved 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 players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
