Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed 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 couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
