🔗 Share this article

Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night against the Texans.

And still 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 loss.

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, 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 pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

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

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

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