Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased 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 absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
