🔗 Share this article

Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”

Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.

Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”