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Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing contest on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

Yet he nearly managed to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes 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 (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “Our team performed 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.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high on eight occasions and hit four additional instances. Allen passed for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after accounting for six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

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

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down 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 deficit to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills played for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the first series of a defeat to New England in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

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

Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.

Allen was disappointed that the Bills couldn’t make plays down the stretch.

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”