Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
