Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
