Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy 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 fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
