Allen Sacked Eight Occasions as Final-Minute Pickoff Dooms Bills in Loss to Texans

Very little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest 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.

The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 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 line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a score.

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

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

Elara Vance is a tech journalist and business strategist with over a decade of experience covering digital transformation and startup ecosystems.