Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it isn't a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
