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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough 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 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.

No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”

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

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

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”