Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
