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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening against the Texans.

Yet he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to lead 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 result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second straight game 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 held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it one day at a time. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the Bills were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to succeed of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and any condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”