Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling 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 optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
