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Little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

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

Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's final possession, leading to a fourth-and-27, 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.

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

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. The QB passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the Bills were unable to execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”