🔗 Share this article

Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”

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

Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”