Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win 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 fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
