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

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

Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Josh Allen to a receiver, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.

After a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a chance to win it there at the conclusion,” Allen said. “We did a solid job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our QB 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it’s not a smart way to preserve our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was fine and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I ran into a few myself. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he escaped and the defender rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt in the third quarter.

The Bills played for a second consecutive matchup absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We’re just taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

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

Allen was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”