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Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest Thursday night against the Houston Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to result in 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 late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the best chance.”

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

Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”