🔗 Share this article

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

And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo 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 tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our field general healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.

No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”

Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”