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Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

“When they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

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

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute down the stretch.

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