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Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough game on Thursday evening against the Texans.

Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’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,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

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 fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times during the game.

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

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”

Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 receiving yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”