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

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute 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 the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”

It was difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”