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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to a receiver, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays in crucial moments.

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”