Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After 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 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
