Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay 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’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total 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 chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
