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Little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close defeat.

Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

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

“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch 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 Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We’re just approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the best chance.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”