🔗 Share this article

Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.

“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, 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 in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

Shakir led the Buffalo 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.

In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”