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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, 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.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”