Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.
Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent 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 first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
