Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy 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 “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”
Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.
In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
