Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
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 passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not 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 receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
