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

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

Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

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

We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured 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 the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”