Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish 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 during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant 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 the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.
No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
