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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night against the Houston 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.

Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to come out on top 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 unfortunately we failed.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

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

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a few personally. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.

“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” 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 players that provide the best chance.”

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

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

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