Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.
The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.
“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”
It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.
Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”
