Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a close loss.
Allen endured 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 tossed a lateral to another teammate.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.
It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.
The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
