🔗 Share this article

Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's 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 a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant 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 delayed for a meeting.

No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”