Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine 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 said. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again 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 the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not 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 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
