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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough game on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a win before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up significant yardage on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

Following a false-start penalty led to a fourth down situation for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted Allen’s pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.

We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit bailed us out a few instances. We must find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

It was tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night 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 touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers the previous week.

“When they hit our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott said. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it’s not a smart way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”

Allen was slow to rise after a sack in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being hit so many times on Thursday.

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

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half tackles for loss to top the Houston defense. Another sack came when he nearly took Allen down near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and the defender rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to result in a punt early in the third.

Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon 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 opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after additionally being delayed for a meeting.

No change. We are taking it day by day,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking 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.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t execute in crucial moments.

“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever scenario and whatever condition, we’ve got to find a way, and we didn’t.”