Allen Sacked Eight Occasions as Final-Minute Interception Dooms Bills in Loss to Texans
Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.
The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.
No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better 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 give us the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.
Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”