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Very little went right for Josh Allen in a frustrating game on Thursday evening against the Texans.

Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.

The quarterback took back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback's throw at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

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

Allen was sluggish to rise 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 many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”

Shakir led the Bills with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”