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Very little went well for Josh Allen in a tough contest on Thursday evening versus the Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a close loss.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but the Bills (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds left.

“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen stated. “We did a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a couple of times. We must figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved tough for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

“When they hit our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple myself. I’ve got to be better at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to lead the Texans. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second straight game without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we’re taking it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that provide the best chance.”

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

Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to execute down the stretch.

In the end, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”