Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late 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 additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
