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Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.

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

The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

Shakir topped the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 yards and a score.

Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”