Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
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 contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”
