Josh Allen Taken Down Eight Times as Final-Minute Pickoff Seals Fate of Buffalo in Loss to Texans

Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”

Khalil Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
Richard Barajas
Richard Barajas

A space technology journalist with a background in astrophysics, passionate about making complex space topics accessible to everyone.

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