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Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, 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 came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out 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 day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

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

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

In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”