Allen Sacked Eight Times as Final-Minute Interception Seals Fate of Bills in Defeat to Houston

Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.

The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was sluggish 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 fell on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, 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 Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
Paul Williams
Paul Williams

A tech journalist and innovation strategist with over a decade of experience covering Canadian startups and digital policy.