Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards 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-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.
“We had a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete 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 sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally 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 better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”
