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Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated 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 unpleasant,” 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 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”

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

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

In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”