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Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

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

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got 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 questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.

“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 opted for the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”