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Little went well for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.

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

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

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

It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to keep our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

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

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”