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Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.

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

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

“We had a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”