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Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.

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

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”

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

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.

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 any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”