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Little went right for Josh Allen in a disappointing contest Thursday night versus the Texans.

And still he came close to willing the Bills to a win before an interception in the final minute ended their hopes in a close defeat.

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 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 come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”

It was difficult for the signal-caller to get anything going on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart 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 fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being contacted so frequently during the game.

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

The Bills' QB lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously held out for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being delayed for a team session.

No change. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays down the stretch.

“Ultimately, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and whatever condition, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”