Capaccio: Josh Allen Will Win MVP

Sal, how are you? Pretty good man! Good to talk to you guys.

All the time, thank you for taking the time. I guess, first question out of the box, when you take a look at the Buffalo Bills and what you've seen so far throughout the course of the season, they did have that hiccup against the Rams, how are you feeling? Are the fans feeling like this is finally the final year to get past the Chiefs?

What say you? Well I think from the fans perspective its a lot of, there's a lot of scar tissue, they're jilted until it actually happens. think there's a lot of you know Cautious optimism, right?

They don't want to get to lean too much into it because I don't want their hearts broken again, right? It's happened too many times But I think there's a recognition that this team You have the ability to win AFC to beat who's ever in front of them on any given Sunday But we've also seen them not have their best days a couple of times this year And then all it takes is one day where you don't have your best You don't have your fastball and you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, you're out of it So yeah, I mean we all recognize that a the bills are certainly one of the best if not It's not maybe the most talented and best team overall in the AFC. But also obviously, you know, they have Me what I think is the league MVP and the number one player in the league as well And whenever you have Josh Allen you have a chance to meet anybody As Sal Capaccio is joining us covers all things Buffalo Bills on the sideline When you look at what's taking place over the past few weeks They they're scoring in the 40s the second highest scoring team in the league But they're giving up, you know 42 points in both these games against the Rams and and also Detroit What's the concern there on the defense what's going on where they're just giving up all these damn points? Well, I think you have to take each game individually and look at them Obviously I would say this against the Rams the defense did not play well. They played pretty poorly Actually, I think they were even embarrassed by their own performance talking with people in the locker room and throughout the week And you know that that's just not indicative of Sean McDermott defense This is a defense that over the last, you know, eight years to Sean McDermott's been charged They've so much pride and be one of the top defenses in the league Generally up near the top and you know points allowed per game and things like that And they were not good against the LA Rams and then they go into Detroit and they're missing three starters in the secondary They're missing their corner Russell Douglas and both starting safeties and it's really actually funny I don't know. I know it's kind of weird to say this and it sounds weird They gave up 500 yards passing over 500 yards of total offense, but actually really liked the way the defense played yesterday It was really more circumstantial. The bills were up, you know three scores They started really just playing a prevent defense and they said we're not gonna let you anything over the top They did an amazing job to shut down the run game They really focused on Jamir Gibbs and David Montgomery. Those guys did not do anything against the bills defense They had a great pass rush of pressure. They sacked Jared golf three times They got to him several times flush him out of the pocket I think a lot of those yards were really more about them under saying hey We're gonna give you yards for time and make sure you don't get easy stuff over the top I'll give you an example Two minutes left in the game 203 left the bills have a 10-point lead and they just said okay if you want to come down The field will let you do that, but you're gonna take a lot of time I mean the the Lions scored but it took 16 plays and you know all of two minutes look they didn't play Situationally well in a couple of those moments. They're down There were a few things you certainly want to want want back But I'm not concerned at all about the defense actually yesterday kind of reinforces my belief Despite the numbers believe it or not that this is still a really good defense Okay, so well when you take a look at what we have left in the season There should be no reason unless they want to get a little bit of rest in that. They shouldn't beat New England Also, New York, we know any given Sunday What can we expect over these next three games as we know they're trying to ramp up for the postseason and also stay healthy? Well a lot of this is gonna hinge on what happens with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City, right? I mean the bills hat they're one and a half games behind Kansas City, so it's chances are unlikely They catch Kansas City But what happens if the Chiefs lose if they don't have a holiday lose on Saturday suddenly Sunday the bills go against the Patriots And now they could climb within one game and remember the bills have the tiebreaker there now all of a sudden all bets are off So they're gonna keep playing until they see this thing through until they can no longer get the one seed They're gonna keep playing they want the one seed they want to be home for the playoffs and especially have that buy But the silver lining is that they don't get the one seed and they know that going into week 18 Then they can back off some players get a little bit healthy and rest a little bit But this team, you know, they they're on a roll right now They've tied an NFL record with eight straight games of 30 or more points I think they feel really good about the way the offense is humming right now and all facets of the game and like I said the way Josh Allen is playing but I think the next three weeks are also to your point earlier Would be really nice for the next three weeks for the defense to get back in tune to where they were earlier in the season No Sal you mentioned Josh Allen it's a think about how he was not criticized how he's how he was Evaluated by coming out of school and being a gunslinger and then he was Superman doing it all and turning the ball over Even as recently as last year this year only five interceptions you've seen him How has he evolved over these years outside of hey keeping and taking care of the ball?

Yeah, your first term was right. He was actually absolutely criticized No doubt about it There were people who said he would never amount to anything in the NFL because of you know His gunslinger mentality and turning the ball over and things like that And what we've seen in Buffalo though is you know a guy it while people look at box scores and say oh my god Look at the interceptions. I think that there's also should be a recognition of all the unbelievable things He did by scoring touchdowns and all the touchdown passes and it's not just all about the positive Of course the negative counts, right? But you don't get all those great things without Josh Allen taking chances and you have to let Josh Allen be a Josh Allen now This year what's happened is he's still he's still Josh Allen a lot of ways But he's basically taking the I'm gonna live to fight another day approach a lot of times which is not gonna necessarily have to you Know throw something here that doesn't have to be thrown I'm gonna make sure that we make the right play make the smart decision He's not running as much although this last couple weeks he did and then yesterday because the the situations presented themselves He's scoring a lot near the goal line He's a great goal line back But you know the decision-making is really I think what's allowed him to not turn the ball over as much and look You're still getting a lot of touchdowns not quite as many through to the air But it's also allowing them to play so much better Complimentary football because they have a very very good running attack behind him where they can turn to all these different guys James Cook and Ray Davis and Ty Johnson as Sal Capaccio is joining us on the JR sport brief show bills reporter You know earlier in the year It looked like Lamar Jackson was was gonna run away With the MVP the Baltimore Ravens looked like they hit a little bit of a hiccup Lamar's still having a ridiculous year Do you think this is the time where Josh Allen will walk away given what the Buffalo Bills record looks like?

I? Do think he will and that's no disrespect to Lamar on the season. He's having he's been phenomenal Um and I think he deserves it. This is look at I think Josh Allen Maybe should have won the the award last year I think that Lamar won it by the fact that there were a lot of guys that you know necessarily Wasn't I think Josh had a really tremendous year last year But Lamar had a great year too And you see where they were in the record and you know what these teams did so look again These two guys are both phenomenal. I think Saquon's probably out of it a little bit at this point considering some of the games He's had I know he can still hit 2,000 yards I think it's between Josh and Lamar, but I think a big reason is you know going into the year I can't tell you how many radio shows like this I did in August that people said well. This is a step back year for the bills right This is a reset year no no step on digs.

No Gabe Davis look at all the weapons Josh Allen has one guy one on on the entire wide receiver Corps They caught a pass from him coming into this year on this team. That's called little Shakir I mean they're doing this with close Shakir Kia rookie key on Coleman second year Dalton K Dawson Knox and yeah, they traded for Amari Cooper yet Josh Allen super 360 yards yesterday and zero targets for Amari Cooper to me That's a big reason why he's MVP He's actually doing it with a far less cast and so much less than a lot of people thought they actually had around them Well when you look at the the other teams that happen to be around the Buffalo Bills competing in the AFC We know Kansas City is they're the boogeyman Patrick Mahomes. Is that that boogeyman Baltimore has its issues Pittsburgh we know that they they have their issues pickings currently hurt Baltimore needs to get over the hump as well the Buffalo Bills look strong What do you think will take place between now and January maybe February? Well, I wish I knew for sure I think I could probably say the bills and Chiefs will meet again, right? I think that's what happened then we'll see from there But look, I mean the bills have beaten the Chiefs pretty much every year in the regular season the last four But of course, we know they haven't beaten them in the playoffs They were within 13 seconds of beating them in one playoff game and then last year They were then one step on digs dropped past and a missed field goal beating them and the margin is so slim They're right there. They know they can beat that team They know they could beat the Kansas City Chiefs But sure is a mentality of and it's something a mental hurdle of you know in the playoffs getting it done and until that happens You know and it hasn't but but I think that as a group inside one of those drive I think there's enough confidence knowing that no. Hey, we've beaten this team. We beat them in Kansas City We've beaten them a Buffalo and we could do it again But you know you're gonna have challenges along the way to with a team like the Ravens who are always a tough matchup for the Bills because the way the bills defense is structured and how they want to you know, really?

With athletic linebackers and they're not the biggest or more structure to stop the pass, you know That's tough against the ball to a team like Baltimore that's gonna big-boy you and Derek Henry So and they lost to the Houston Texans this year. Nothing's certain in this league. There's no doubt I just feel like the bills again seem like they might be on a collision course with the Kansas City Chiefs again Yeah, I think we might as well I don't want to go ahead and and put that in the dirt because we know there's there's no guarantees Nothing is set but it seems like this is what we're in store for just about every season Let's see if the results are different this time for everybody in Buffalo Hey Sal, where can people follow you and all of your amazing work? Yeah. Thank you at Sal Sports on X slash Twitter also some media platforms including YouTube.

We have our podcast It's always game day in Buffalo and a lot of other content there as well So at Sal Sports is the place and of course WGR sports radio 550 if you're ever bumping around Buffalo. Hey Sal Thank you so much. I think you you got a lot of more football in front of you to cover So we appreciate the time. Okay Yeah, I hope so. Thanks a lot, man