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Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’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 said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

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

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”