Allen Sacked 8 Occasions as Late Pickoff Seals Fate of Buffalo in Defeat to Houston

Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”
Steven Watts
Steven Watts

Eveline de Vries is a certified financial planner with 15 years of experience in wealth management and personal finance.