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Very little went right for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

“When they hit our QB 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack came when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”