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Little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the 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 sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

“When they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.

Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to execute in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”