Josh Allen Taken Down 8 Occasions as Final-Minute Interception Seals Fate of Bills in Loss to Houston

Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.

Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.

Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass 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 pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they hit our QB 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 safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”

Khalil Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

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

“Ultimately, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”