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

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

Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defense saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into 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 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to make plays down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”