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Very little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

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

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

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

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

Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a tackle in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one came when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second straight game without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the Bills couldn’t execute down the stretch.

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”