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

Yet he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments ended their hopes in a 23-19 loss.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the team's last drive, leading to a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) gained significant yardage on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds remaining.

“We had a opportunity to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a evening he was sacked a career-high eight times and hit four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a safe way to compete and it isn't a good way to preserve our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was sluggish to get up after a sack in the first half. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was questioned about being contacted so many times 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 going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly took Allen down near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” McDermott said. “I thought he had a better week, but we are handling it step by step. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”

Shakir led the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.

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

In the end, we must execute, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we need to find a way, and we didn’t.”