Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise 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 in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “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 players that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
