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

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 defeat.

The quarterback endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a few 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. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”