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Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

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 previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”