Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
