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Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

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

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay the previous week.

“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated 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 on Thursday.

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

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose 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 again a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”