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Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen endured consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but the Bills (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.

Following a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”

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

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

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. His second one came when he almost took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and Anderson got up and chased him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard deficit 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 previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

No change. We are approaching it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are 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.”

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

The quarterback was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever condition, we need to find a way, and we came up short.”