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Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close loss.

The quarterback took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart 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 rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half 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 got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit 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 non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a team session.

No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

“Ultimately, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”