Josh Allen Sacked Eight Occasions as Late Pickoff Seals Fate of Buffalo in Defeat to Texans

Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield 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 without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”