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

Yet he came close to driving the Bills to a win before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.

Allen took consecutive tackles for loss on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off Allen’s pass at the Houston 9 with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We must find a way, and we didn’t.”

Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a smart way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We’ve got to play better.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.

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

The Bills' QB lost 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Texans. Another sack came when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson rose and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup absent wideout Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was previously benched for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after also being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that give us the best chance.”

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

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

In the end, we must perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”