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

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.

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

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

Allen was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”