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Little clicked for Josh Allen in a frustrating contest on Thursday evening versus the Houston Texans.

Yet he came close to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.

Allen endured back-to-back tackles for loss on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) picked up 44 yards on a quick throw from Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.

After a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for the Bills, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with under half a minute left.

We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the end,” Allen said. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out 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 sacked a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four additional instances. The QB passed for 253 passing yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after producing six TDs in a victory over the Buccaneers the previous week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, I don’t like that,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It is not a healthy way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to play better.”

Allen was sluggish 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 landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times during the game.

It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple personally. I’ve got to be more effective at throwing the ball away. On multiple occasions, I was going backwards.”

The Bills' QB surrendered 70 yards on the eight sacks. Will Anderson Jr. had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he escaped and Anderson got up and pursued him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt in the third quarter.

Buffalo played for a second consecutive matchup without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a non-participant after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a loss to New England in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.

“Nothing new. We’re just taking it day by day,” McDermott said. “I felt he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that give us the optimal opportunity.”

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

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

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “Whatever scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to discover a solution, and we didn’t.”