Allen Sacked 8 Times as Final-Minute Interception Dooms Buffalo in Loss to Houston

Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

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

The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got 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 a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.

No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
Jon Avila
Jon Avila

A seasoned sports analyst with over a decade of experience in betting strategies and market trends.