Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
