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Very little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating contest Thursday night against the Texans.

And still he nearly managed to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close loss.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

We possessed a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart 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 opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.

No change. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

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