JOSH ALLEN WILL BE THE MVP
And that's all well and good, but ...
Well, Josh Allen did it again. Once again, doing remarkable, amazing things. He’s been that way now for the past four games. Running thru the Kansas City Chiefs single-handedly for the deciding score. Catching a lateral from Amari Cooper to score in the snow against the Niners. Six touchdowns, three rushing, three passing, in a LOSING effort against the Rams. And now, 362 yards and two rushing scores in the latest track meet against the Lions.
He is going to be the MVP. It is a quarterback’s league, and he has been the best quarterback all year. And it seems like it’s him and him alone; when the pundits and talking heads speaks about the Bills, it’s the Josh Allen show. It’s almost like LeBron and Kobe-level adulation, where it didn’t matter who else is on the court. And maybe it truly does not matter who else is on tbe gridiron. Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis are out for the year. Josh is doing it with a No-Name offense.
But there are questions.
If Josh Allen wins the MVP but does NOT win the Super Bowl, is that okay? It’s an interesting question. I do not know a lot of fellow Bills fans personally, although I always seem to get a “Go Bills” of if I am wearing a Bills t-shirt somewhere. I see a lot of them in on-line groups, which is a dangerous place to weigh fan judgement. Especially when I get the impression that a good an amount of Bills supporters are okay with the idea that Josh would get the MVP but the Bills not win the Super Bowl. The latter still seems like an impossible dream, with plenty of scapegoats (Sean McDermott) if they fail. But if Josh wins the MVP, it will be as if the entire city had won it.
It was not okay that Aaron Judge won his second MVP this year, but the Yankees lost the World series, at least to this Yankees fan. I am certain that Connor McDavid, the best player in hockey, wanted to lift the Stanley Cup this year. Nikolai Jokic won an NBA title the year he did not win MVPs; he has three of those (Joel Embiid was MVP when Denver won the championship. I’d like to think Jokic treasures the Larry O’Brien trophy more than a missed MVP award.)
But, you may say, if Josh wins MVP, that would mean the Bills naturally would have a better chance to win the Super Bowl, right?
Well, I’ll just quote the Google Search results: “Eleven players have won the Super Bowl and MVP in the same season: Bart Starr in 1966, Terry Bradshaw in 1978, Mark Moseley in 1982, Lawrence Taylor in 1986, Joe Montana in 1989, Emmitt Smith in 1993, Steve Young in 1994, Brett Favre in 1996, Terrell Davis in 1998, Kurt Warner in 1999, and Patrick Mahomes in 2022”. Tom Brady is not on this list, and neither is Peyton Manning, Jerry Rice, Drew Brees, or Aaron Rodgers. Also not on the list are OJ Simpson and Thurman Thomas, the only other Bills players to capture the MVP honor. OJ didn’t make the playoffs when he won in 1973. When Thurman made it to Super Bowl XXVI, he couldn’t find his helmet.
And the doubts still linger on if the Bills can even make it, or course. They lost to the Rams on a failed sneak which forced a timeout that left them with no chance to get the ball back. (They also gave up 44 points.) Detroit had a chance to recover their last second onside-kick which, of course, led to flashbacks of contests like the ones I described in my last article while they were wrestling for the ball. (The defense gave up 42 points this time.)
(As an aside, with all the Bills games Tony Romo has called the past few years, I am surprised they have never mentioned HIS Monday Night Football comeback against the Bills in 2007. Perhaps they recognize the ill will that would create.)
So, we now stand with three games left in the regular season, two against the Pats, one against the Jets. When it is over, Josh Allen will most likely have had the greatest regular season in Bills history.
And I don’t know if it will be enough, any way you slice it.
Oh, it was announced that Allen and the Bills will begin contract discussions after the season.
And you thought Juan Soto got paid.