The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Sal Capaccio Shares His Insight Covering The Buffalo Bills

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

Buffalo Bills Beat Reporter, Sal Capaccio joins Matt and Ross to give a Buffalo perspective of Bills v Texans

This is Carlos Correa. Your Astros? Your rockets. Shoots for three. Your voice. Let's talk, man. Look. On Sports Talk, 79.

Only champions play here. 131. Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk, 790. Hey, it's great. Our local TV affiliate just sent on a tweet, Ross. It said on January 3rd, 1993, the Buffalo Bills, the feet of the Houston owners, 4138, and overtime in the AFC Walled Card game. I have no recollection.

No, do I. I don't remember anything about that whatsoever. I wonder if Sal Capaccio does from WGR Radio. Sal, is that game ring a bell to you? Yeah, it's actually a great story, guys. I grew up. I had a season ticket to the bills when I was younger. That game was in my college years.

I was in college for three of the four Super Bowls. And back then, believe it or not, that was the third year. The bills went to the Super Bowl. So that game was not sold out in time to lift the blackout here locally at Beck and the Old Rules with the TV. So my buddies and I went to a local sports bar and watched the game. Marksmar actually happened to be owned partially by O.J. Simpson. So that's where I watched that game. And we did stay until the end, which was pretty incredible.

It is the only game, believe or not, I'm embarrassed to admit this. The only playoff game through the entire Super Bowl run, I did not actually attend in person. I was a young sportscaster. I was a producer, in a matter of fact, back in the day. And I think we talked about that game for, I don't know, 25, 30 years. I mean, it's been that long, but it feels that way. We took maybe nonstop calls about that game for six months. You obviously had a chance to go on and see the team go to the Super Bowl, but that one lives in infamy.

And it was funny because it was brought up earlier this week at the press conference. And I don't know about how it's felt up in your place, but we do not put any correlation between what it's about to happen Saturday than one that happened in January, 1993. Is that ain't brought up at all with you folks up there? You know, some people have. I have not. And I think it's weird because it's even a different organization. That's right. I mean, I know it's a safe city.

But, you know, I kind of correlate even more that the Music City miracle happened against the old. organization you guys had, obviously, which is now the Titans. And that happened, you know, the last time the bills were the playoffs, you know, before the 2017 season, which happened to coincide then with the long drought we had. And I think about that one a little more, but of course it doesn't mean anything. That was a long time ago. You know, the bills, though, they do have the third longest playoff wind drought in the entire NFL. It's been 24 seasons since we had a playoff win, 1995. That's a long time. Bengals and the Lions are the only two teams. that have had a win drought in the playoffs longer than the bills.

So we're still searching for that here in Buffalo. Sal Capacho, WGR Radio, covers the bills and is on the sidelines. And I'm assuming you're coming to Houston for the game, correct? Oh, yeah. I fly on the charter with the team, so we'll be headed out tomorrow. And I'm on the sidelines for all the games. This is my sixth season as the radio sideline guy. And, you know, really looking forward to it.

It should be fun. I remember that I've been there twice now. The first was the JJ Watt Pick Six game against E.J. annual. And then last year, of course, which was the Nathan Peterman pick six game. Yeah, can you make Nathan Paterman available? Because I think the Texans have a much better chance of beating the bills if he's quarterback against compared to Josh.

Give me the best and the worst of Josh Allen this year. Oh, best and worst. I would say the worst was really early on against the New England Patriots. Josh Allen in that game, the bills were 3 and 0, the Patriots were 3 and Josh just was throwing balls up. Haphas. He was trying to do too much. They were really confusing them. Bill some of the pressure schemes they were bringing and things like that.

He wound up with three interceptions that day. The bill's only wound up scoring a total of six points. They lost 13 to six. And then the best of Josh Allen was probably Thanksgiving in front of a national television audience in Dallas. And he was great that day. He was 80% or close to that. I think completion percentage wise just ran the offense super efficiently. Ran like we've seen him run.

So we've seen the best and the worst throughout the year. But I will say this, since that New England game, guys, though, he's really, he's really taken a lot of steps. And he was a turnover machine the first four weeks of the year. I think he had, I think it was like seven or five, five or six interceptions in those first four weeks. He's only thrown three interceptions since week four. He's really taking care of the ball very well. And why is that, do you believe?

You know, he had to do some introspection. He talked about that. He said that game was really important for him to understand what he can and can't do. I think the coaching staff really said, okay, Josh, you're in your second year now. we need to stop this. This is not, you can't play hero ball. You can't just try to do everything yourself. You know, you understand, Josh Allen came from Wyoming, and we all know that he's not the most high accurate guy in the world. We all knew that coming out. But at Wyoming, he was the best player on the field for his team all the time. He had to do everything for his team. And no matter

what the situation was, he was always trying to make a play happen. And I think that's what he had to overcome in the NFL. No matter what the situation was, he was always trying to make a play happen. And he had to learn, you don't have to do that here. Like, you have a very good defense. You have a good running game. You have to take what the defense gives you. And I think that's really the biggest strides that he's made. Let me ask you, Sal, about Josh the runner, because the numbers are very impressive. If you were to grade him one to ten about when to take off and run, when the plays are called for him to actually go get a couple yards on his own, it feels like to me he'd get a very high grade on that. Is that accurate?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. And, you know, last year, the Bill's offense was Josh Allen throw deep in Josh Allen running. I mean, that's really what it was. It's not this year. The Bill's did a great job of surrounding him some weapons like John Brown and Cole Beasley, Dawson Knox has come on. So, you know, he can throw the ball while Devin Singletary's ever a really nice year running the ball. But they still run the ball with Josh. You just haven't run as frequently. And they've really picked their spots very well. Brian Daples come up with designed runs, especially in the red zone. He's very good running. And Josh Allen has eight rushing touchdowns this year. I believe it's something similar to the

stat of him and Cam Newton are the only two quarterbacks. in NFL history, I believe, that have had back-to-back eight rushing touchdown seasons, which is pretty remarkable. And he's only in his second year. So he's been very good at running the ball, knowing when he can and can't run with the football. And, you know, the bills have used him in that regard, but not as much as they did last year.

A couple of questions on the defensive side for a local angle, if you don't mind, Sal. Ed Oliver, I went to University of Houston and watched him own college football for a couple of seasons. How would you describe his rookie season? You know, he started really slow, but now he's coming on. I think, Ed, much like what I just said about Josh, you know, and Ed was at Houston, as you know, he dominated. He was a guy that, you know, every single day, he was pretty much every game.

He was pretty much the best player on the field that an offense had to concentrate on. And I think he came into the NFL not understanding that that's really not the case here. And the guys he's going to go against the NFL compared to college are going to be a lot bigger, stronger, and faster. And, you know, Ed, at his size, he can't just dominate like that. So I think he had to really understand the nuances of playing the game and playing the position. And he's done that. On top of that, the bills run, you know, in off a defense, I should say, that's really more about the collective sum that it is the parts.

And he had to fit into his 11th. He had to do his job. He had to learn gap control and gap integrity. It took him a while, but he's really come out, especially since that Thanksgiving Day game. He had two sacks in that game. He is the first Bill's rookie since Darrell Talley to have sacks in three straight games, and now he's starting to play really good football.

Second guy on the defense I want to ask about, we had Cream Jackson playing for the Broncos, and he came to Houston and had an interception, almost at a couple of touchdowns and was really feeling like going against his old team and little nana-na-na-na-na. Would Kevin Johnson be in that category? How much is he playing? How much has he helped out the Bill's defense this year? So you guys might see Kevin Johnson a lot because he has not started this year, but Levi Wallace has, and Levi Wallace has banged up. You heard his ankle last week. Kevin Johnson, about halfway through the year, started rotating snaps

with Levi-Wa Walls. They played about 50-50. They would rotate every two series. And there's part of a reason because Levi was having some struggles, and that's a lot of the really helped him along to not put everything on his plate, but also because Kevin Johnson and his durability issues, as you know, and I don't think they wanted to expose him to 100% of the snaps. But since he's been in there, he's played really well. He fits very well into this system. And, you know, the bills have an outstanding elite cornerback

and Tradavius White on one side. And he usually shadows the other team's top receiver. He'll be on D'Andre Hopkins, I'm sure. And that's allowed guys like Wallace and Kevin Johnson to focus more on the other receiver on the field, which, you know, helps them a lot of ways. I've talked to Kevin this week. it's a story here, and I asked him specifically about the emotions and going back to Hughes to the place where it ended like he didn't want to. And he's handled it right. He's been

a professional about it and he said, you know, it's of course going to be on his mind, but he just has to do his job all week and, you know, treat it like any other game and keep those emotions in check. A couple more minutes here with Sal Capaccio, WGR Radio, Buffalo Bill's silent reporter with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Obviously, a lot of the conversation in the last 24 hours here in town has been about J.J. Watt returning. Have you seen enough of the bills on the offensive side and for Josh to audibilize out of that and maybe say, all right, if you think we're going to pass because JJ Watts on the field, we're going to try to expose him, double team him and open

up our running game a little bit and check plays in the line of scrimmage? Yeah, two things with that. Number one, I think people don't realize how much Josh Allen really does as far as that stuff with the offense. Ryan Dable has given him pretty much autonomy of the offense. Every offensive lineman has said all year that Josh pretty much runs the offense. He runs the show. He's allowed to get in and out of any.

play he can. Daible has said that, and Josh has done a really good job of that, going even back to OTAs and mini camp where they put that on his plate. So he's been great at that. He's smart. He can identify and he can get him in and out of plays. But I'll say this too. You know, the bills have faced some really good pass rushers this year, and Von Miller, to Marcus Lawrence, Miles Garrett. You know, they've gone against a lot of these guys. And Cody Ford, this is the one that's going to maybe be a really interesting match because Cody Ford is a rookie who is now playing a lot because Ty and Sec is been banged up. And he would be matched. up against JJ Wad a lot. So we'll see. I think, you know, there's a lot of question. Here in

Buffalo, we're questioning in the media of how much, how effective will JJ be, how his conditioning, things like that, you know, coming back from that peck, that's going to be a tough challenge. So, you know, do the bills have to devote more resources to block him or just say, you know what? Let's see what he can do before we have to make adjustments. I think we're saying the same thing down here, honestly, Sal. For I let you run, we obviously know you have a vested interest and would like the bills to win. So give me the scenario in your mind as you lay in bed at night, dreaming of a Bill's victory, how is it going to happen? And as you are in that same bed of yours sleeping and trying to dream, how do you envision

the bills not coming down here and winning this football game? Give me the pluses and minuses of what's going to happen Saturday for your squad. Well, you know, I think that for the bills to get out of there and not allow the Texans to come out with a victory, they have to, you know, contain Deshaun and the big play. Obviously, Deshawn Watson can change any game with one or two plays, and we saw it last year. through that ball up in the air into the end zone. Phillip Gaines had the pass interference of two minutes left, but that's what he does.

He gives this guy a chance, and he had a great pass to DeAndre Hopkins, and Trey White had great coverage on it, and that was a big play for them, and I think that's one thing. But I think the way the bills can win this game is running the football. And as you guys know, I just did the numbers, and I tweeted it out earlier.

Last seven weeks, the Texans are giving up 168 yards a game on the ground and 5.6 yards of carry. That is a monster number. You know, the bills have Devin Singletary, and Frank Gore, and I think that the bills are going to really try to establish that running game, and they're a good running football team. And I think if Devin Singletary and Frank Gore can really start to get the game going on the ground, that will really allow Josh Allen to do some things through the air. So you think it's all about the ground game, ultimately that will get the victory for Buffalo?

I do think so. I think that's where it starts. You know, obviously they'll give Josh's opportunities, but I just think looking at the numbers and, you know, what's going on in the last half of the year for the Texans, it's more about the ground game for the bills and getting Devin Singletary. And I tell you this, Frank Gore has not touched the ball a lot here in the second half. He's kind of slowed down. He's shown his age a little bit. I think Frank Gore could be part of the game plan here, too. I wouldn't be surprised to keep those guys fresh and to try and really go out to Texans' run defense

and to keep fresh legs going, so to speak, to try and get them to stop it. Sal, thank you very much for the time. Safe travels to Houston. We appreciate it. And if you want to find out what Sal has gotten on his mind during the game or before, he's on Twitter at Sal Sports. Sal, thank you very much for the time again. Okay, guys, looking forward to it and happy New Year.

to you, my friend. Thank you. Sound Capaccio, WGR Radio in Buffalo on the sidelines for the Bills and the Texans. We appreciate him spending some time with us here on the radio show today.