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Very little clicked for the Bills' quarterback in a tough contest Thursday night against the Texans.

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

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

“We had a opportunity to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”

Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general healthy for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Josh Allen was sluggish to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently on Thursday.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I ran into a few personally. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that give us the best chance.”

Khalil Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.

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

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