🔗 Share this article

Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.

Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat 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 remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

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

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”