Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw 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, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “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 field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver 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 loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
