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Very little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a disappointing game on Thursday evening against the Houston Texans.

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

Allen took consecutive sacks on the Bills’ last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) picked up 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 Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off the quarterback'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 good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”

Proved difficult for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was sacked a personal-worst eight times and hit four other times. Allen threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over Tampa Bay last week.

Whenever they pressure our quarterback a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott commented. “I don’t like that statistic at all. It’s just not a healthy way to compete and it isn't a good way to keep our quarterback in good shape for the remaining games. We’ve got to play better.”

Allen was slow to rise after a tackle in the first half. He indicated he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so frequently on Thursday.

“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I ran into a few myself. I need to be more effective at disposing of the football. Too many times, I was going backwards.”

Allen lost 70 yards on the eight quarterback takedowns. Anderson 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 Anderson rose and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt early in the third.

Buffalo played for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was tardy to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a team session.

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 was not that it wasn’t thought about, but we went with the players that provide the optimal opportunity.”

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

Allen was frustrated that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.

In the end, we’ve got perform, and we didn’t succeed of that this evening,” he concluded. “Whatever situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”