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Little went well for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Texans.

And still he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

Allen took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a long fourth down, but Buffalo (7-4) gained 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen said. “We did a good job of staying in it and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”

It was difficult for Allen to get anything going on a evening he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they hit our QB a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that stat at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being contacted so many times on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he said. “I encountered a few myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 tackles for loss to lead the Texans. His second one came when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson rose and chased him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.

The Bills competed for a second consecutive matchup without wideout Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a squad gathering before their previous contest. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a defeat to the Patriots in the fifth week after additionally being late for a meeting.

No change. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we’re handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”

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

The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.

In the end, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and any condition, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”