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Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ 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 backward pass to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.

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

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”