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Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.

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

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself losing ground.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was tardy to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.

No change. We’re just approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”

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

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

“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”