Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “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 went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
