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Little went well for Josh Allen in a tough game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.

And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.

The quarterback endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

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 under half a minute remaining.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to get anything going on a night he was sacked a career-high eight times and pressured four additional instances. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he nearly 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 result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”