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Very little went well for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Texans.

And still he came close to driving the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments ended their hopes in a close defeat.

The quarterback took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ final possession, resulting in a long fourth down, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to another teammate.

Following a false-start penalty created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock picked off the quarterback's throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.

“We had a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen stated. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defensive unit saved us a few instances. We’ve got figure it out, and we didn’t.”

It was tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six touchdowns in a win over the Buccaneers last week.

“When they hit our quarterback a dozen times, I don’t like that,” Bills coach McDermott said. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to play and it’s not a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the rest of the season. We need to play better.”

Josh Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen surrendered 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and pursued him across the field to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was previously benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being late for a team session.

“Nothing new. We are taking it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a improved week, but we’re handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it wasn’t thought about, but we opted for the guys that provide the best chance.”

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

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

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” he said. “No matter the scenario and any circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we came up short.”