The civic hope thrust upon Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is probably unparalleled in the NFL because of the suffering of the franchise. Bills sideline reporter Sal Capaccio joins Nestor to preview Baltimore at Buffalo and Lamar vs. Josh on a wintry night in Orchard Park for a chance to move forward in the Super Bowl tournament.
Nestor Aparicio and Sal Capaccio discuss the upcoming match between the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills, highlighting the parity between the two teams and the MVP debate between Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. They reflect on the historical significance of the Bills franchise and the impact of weather conditions on the game. Capaccio notes the Bills’ recent health issues and strategic decisions that affected their previous loss to the Ravens. Both agree on the importance of running the ball and the role of player development in the success of Jackson and Allen. They also touch on the community spirit in Buffalo and the potential for a parade if the Bills win.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Bills vs. Ravens, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, MVP debate, playoff failures, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, offensive strategy, defensive matchup, turnover differential, player development, community impact, cold weather, tailgating, new stadium
SPEAKERS
Sal Capaccio, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T am 1570 south of Baltimore and Baltimore, positive. It’s a big, big week around you’re so big and the weather’s been so bad, there’s no Maryland crap cake tour this week we’re going to get it back out a cup of soup or bowl. Begins on February 3. We’re going to be feeding folks who need some food. We’re going to be talking to lots and lots of community charity folks that happens during a cup of soup or Bowl week. Now, whether the ravens are going to be there or not, gotta go to Buffalo see what happens to Kansas City. Sal capaccio joins us here from Western New York, where I have spent many days and nights. I Your Sal, I was thinking back to my first trip to Orchard Park, and it was the Jay Schrader art shell K gun marcher, bro, I think Andre Reed still catching touchdowns. I think Bruce Smith is still landing on Jay scheder. And y’all still have won a Super Bowl. We’ve had two. We really have a franchise then, right? So I think of this trip and going up there, different than the plague thing that happened a couple of years ago, two MVPs. I can’t think of a finer football game in the history of the Ravens. And I think about mile high miracle going up, playing Peyton Manning it. But for this generation, for where we are, that’s been a dozen years. And I know I’m not going to bring up the Norwood thing or any of that, but it’s been 100 years. But this is as good as it gets, being talking about football and and doing this at this point, because I have no idea who’s going to win. Yeah.
Sal Capaccio 01:26
I mean, I and the betting lines are saying the same thing. It’s pretty much an even game with depending on where you look. I guess. I think the bill started favors favorites. The ravens are favorites. But I think the what, what adds to this game, for all those reasons and intrigue, is these two teams have kind of butted their heads against the ceilings recently, right? And they’ve had playoff failures against Patrick mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs or whoever. And now you have Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, and there’s this raging debate between the two fan bases on who deserves the MVP. They’re both unbelievable talents. They’re incredible. They’re going to finish one and two in whatever order. It is often called the best weekend of the year in the NFL, the AFC in the NFC divisional round, and the NFL decided to put this game as their showcase game on the best weekend of the year. That shows you how important it is to the league. Uh, you voted for Josh Allen, right, I don’t have a vote. I don’t have a vote, but you have a vote on the radio. I mean, you’re so I would say this. This is how I’ve framed it. I’m I’m going to be admittedly like, tell you that I probably biased because I’m closer to the situation. I see what Josh Allen has done for the Buffalo Bills, but I have zero issue with anybody who votes for Lamar Jackson. If I had a vote, I’d probably vote for for Josh Allen. I think I would, because I do think the bills have to lean on Josh more than the Ravens have to lean on Lamar, but Lamar does have better statistics. There’s no doubt about that. I I, what I hate is how this has become Nestor, a we got to tear down the other guy to prop up our guy. This isn’t a it reminds me of dirty political ads, right? And I hate those style. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 02:56
why I stopped taking footballs 15 years ago. I just, I can’t. I’m not even in that. I sort of joke about it, Luke and I eight minutes of airtime this week talking about it. And that’s cool, because that’s what it’s worth to me. But I the divisiveness of sports. I’m 40 years into this. I don’t get it, and I will not participate in
03:15
it for you, and I the country’s about to
Nestor Aparicio 03:19
go to hell on Monday morning. So like, you know, like, I can’t this still needs to be fun for the next couple of days until it is or isn’t. And based on what I saw with the Vikings the other day and the pack, you know, when you get eliminated this time of year, I need to tell you, it’s happened you guys, a bunch. It’s happened to us a whole lot lately, too much under the Harbaugh administration lately. But you know, the the atmosphere and where it is, and then there’s still Kansas City over the hill for either one of these franchises. I mean, this is as competitive as it’s it’s been. I mean, we have Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Hall of Fame operations here all the way through. I mean, so much so that Tomlin can’t find a quarterback, right? I mean, Bengals couldn’t even get in the playoffs. And I’ll make a case for their quarterback, that if you gave me any of them over a 10 year body of work, I take him just, I just would, because I’m old school like that, but he’s not even playing. So that’s how hard it is to get to this game, and that’s how hard it is good to wake up Monday morning, either on the good side of we’re going to Kansas City, good for us, or we’re going to Cancun, yeah.
04:21
Or maybe you’re hosting a game, you know, if for some weird way and some weird thing happens, and the Texans beat the chiefs, the winner of this game knows that they’ll be hosting the AFC Championship Game, which makes the stakes, you know, even higher. I mean, Saturday night, right? That’s right. I think for the bills, you know, having this game in Buffalo matters. Obviously, you’ve been to Orchard Park, you know, the atmosphere here. You know what bills mafia brings. Having the game down in Baltimore, you know, was a nice, you know, benefit for them in that game and help them in the Ravens kick the bills tail for a lot of reasons. But, you know, having the game here in Buffalo, I think, obviously makes Bills fans feel better. But certainly the way that the ravens are playing, you could certainly argue they are playing better football than anybody in the NFL right now. So
Nestor Aparicio 05:00
capaccio covers the Buffalo Bills as well as anyone. He’s at WGR, a 550, you can find him out at Sal sports as well, and you can talk some rock and roll with him. Once all this football is over, we can talk about some music, and we’ll have some fun here. But you said that Bill’s got their tails kick for a bunch of reasons. Make the case to make up those 25 points, and what happened in that game, not just the Josh Allen’s got the offense working better, but I think Milana different things going on with the defense and how the teams are playing right now. Nobody’s playing better than the ravens, though that’s that’s pretty apparent based on the last five weeks and how they’ve been on national TV and have looked like the team that Eric the Costa dream them to be back in the spring, and more than that, a full health which zay flowers aside, but they’ve had unbelievable health this year. I’ve been doing this from the beginning. I’ve never seen a healthier team.
05:53
Well, I would say that’s exactly where I’d start. The bills actually are extremely healthy as well. They’re as healthy as they’ve been in this era of Shaw McDermott and Josh Allen going into the playoffs, but however that game, that’s where I’ll start with, a bunch of reasons the bills were Listen, injuries happen. We know that’s not an excuse, but if you want to give me some, I’ll give you some reasons the bills were missing, arguably the three best defenders that entire game, and everybody at the second level of their defense, Matt Milano is still not returned. Their middle linebacker, Terrell Bernard, who’s an excellent player, was out of that game with a peck injury, and Taryn Johnson, an All Pro corner, was also out of that game. So they had all three of their their second level players missing, and I’d argue, maybe most important players on defense, all three of them on the offensive side, Khalil Shakir, who is their number one receiver, got hurt on the very first drive of the game, and he was basically could not play. He was very hobbled the rest of the game. I think that impacted how the bills called the game. You go back and look, Sean McDermott’s actually been very aggressive on fourth downs this year. But that game, he wasn’t, I think he was trying to play a conservative game, knowing that, you know, they might have to try to keep the score down because of, you know, the offense was still coming around. It was their second road game of the year with a whole bunch of new receivers. They played it differently. They were a little bit conservative. They were in a trick play. Now, remember, it was 21 to 10. The bills had the ball, and they were driving, and if they scored a touchdown, it’s a new game. Bill’s called trick play. It was disaster, and there was a turnover, and Josh Allen actually got hurt on the play. And from there, it’s just kind of steam rolled. After that, there’s no doubt the ravens are playing as good a football as anybody, and it’s a tough matchup. And you ask anybody in Buffalo Nestor, they’d say the ravens are probably the worst matchup for the bills, because they run the ball so well, and the bills are really structured to stop the pass more than the run on defense. Um, they’re lighter and more athletic. They’re not super big, but that’s going to take a lot of effort now to make sure you stop Derek Henry, because I think that’s got to be your number one focus. As great as Lamar is, you got to pick your poison. Is, you got to pick your poison. And I think for the bills, that the way that they’re built, I think they’d rather focus on stopping Derrick Henry and say, we’ll take our chances having Lamar throw the ball, because at least then we have a chance if we can get them, you know, running around, or put the ball in the air. So for
Nestor Aparicio 07:54
Derek Henry, you know, I’ve been patting myself on the back, because both the trading deadlines the last couple of years, I’m like, they need a better running back. They can’t have Lamar even we ran the ball 15 times the other day, 10 in the first quarter against Steelers. You know that was so 2018 and 19, and when they were playing the metallic brand of football, where all the little metallic parts go one way. It’s Marshall yonda blowing people up. The passing game is matured here. No question about it. I don’t know what the weather conditions. I mean, I know it’s going to be 18 degrees. I don’t know if it’s going to be snowing on Sunday night. I know Lamar doesn’t love the cold. Nobody loves the cold. Defenders don’t like tackling in the cold. The Derrick Henry thing was always curious to me. And, you know, I have this fun tweet that I’ve been sharing that if the Ravens were to get Derrick Henry, they would be my word was unstoppable, and it was just a stupid tweet, you know, I threw out a year and a half ago, and now that he’s here, it feels a little unstoppable. Now, I would say this, you know, they threw it in on their offensive line in the off season with Zeitler and Morgan Moses, and they decided to go younger. And it’s worked out okay when it’s worked out okay when they haven’t been blown up by special defenders. I mean, the raiders in the Browns had mismatches all day long. One mismatch and it was over with. That’s all it took to to beat them. Three and Four win teams beating them. So there have been teams that have had the number, but the Derrick Henry thing, once it gets going on a cold night, it becomes harder to stop, and especially if you don’t stop it, and if the Ravens don’t fumble, and there’s this whole thing of them living in second and two and second and three and second and one, with these long first down runs that they just keep moving the chains and shortening the game. I think, I think this is a tough matchup for Buffalo, but I am very concerned about Josh Allen against the Ravens defense, which hasn’t seen this kind of thing in a while. I mean, Russell Wilson’s one thing, but I mean, Jalen Hurts came in here and beat him five
09:46
weeks ago. Well, listen, Josh Allen loves the cold. Josh Allen, I believe, has the greatest record in NFL history of the playoffs and freezing temperatures. He also has the lowest interception rate in the history of the NFL playoffs with any quarterback that started as many. Games as he has. He loves playing in the cold. He’s been incredible throughout, you know, at least, you know, in most playoff games, he wasn’t perfect at every game. Certainly, a couple years ago against Cincinnati, team didn’t play all that great in a snowy game. We know that, you know, and Josh is playing, as we said, at an MVP level. And the thing about this offense for the bills is they have this mantra called everybody eats. You can’t look around and say, We’re gonna take away. Stephan Diggs, because he’s not here anymore and he’s there’s no one guy you can’t even you want to take away. Kale Shakir, well, here comes Amari Cooper. Want to take a Mari Cooper, here comes Keon Coleman. He want to take away Keon Coleman, here come their tight ends. How about the tight ends? Well, here come the running backs. Really the bills have done it with everybody eating. They’ve scored over 30 points a game. Now, I think it’s Detroit, Buffalo and Baltimore for the top three scoring teams in the NFL. And we know the bills have done it with just kind of a cast of characters that really just everybody, everybody could do their job in any given play, and that’s what makes them so tough to defend. When they went to Baltimore in week four, Baltimore was struggling a little bit on the Pat, on the on defense, on the passing side. They shut the bills down. Then they moved Kyle Hamilton back to deep safety. We see the results. So the they’re a terrific, you know, team against the pass as well. The bills are going to have their their hands full, but I would say that one area the bills have been absolutely dominant in. The showed up on Sunday, their offensive line is was they took apart a really good Denver front, and they ran the ball for 210 yards. And I think that’s going to be a challenge even for Baltimore to stop, because the bills are going to want to run the ball. They’re going to want to keep the Ravens offense off the field. And the bills have been the best team in the league in turnover differential. They don’t give you the ball. You know, this, this whole thing about Josh Allen over the last year, whatever, years of his career, about, you know, turnovers and, you know, things like that. Josh Allen has six interceptions, two Bumbles on the year. That’s it. The bills lead the league in a plus 24 turnover differential. Nobody’s even close to that. They don’t take they don’t give you the ball, and they do take the ball away. So I think in this game, it’s going to come down to that which is which defense can kind of get one or two extra stops, whether that’s a turnover or forcing a punt to give their offense an ability to try and score some points.
Nestor Aparicio 12:01
Well, turnovers happen on fourth and two, if you can stop it, because plenty of fourth down going on in this game. We’ve seen that in the play. It’s almost like baseball players, the strategy changes a little bit. Certainly, everything about baseball strategy pitching changes, but football, it’s a little bit different, especially cold weather and running the ball. Sal capaccio is here from Buffalo and you’re now, you’re not a buffalonian, right? You’re transplanted, or you are from there. No,
12:23
I grew up here in Cheektowaga, which is where the buffalo Airport is. What buffalo is very it might be like a little Baltimore
Nestor Aparicio 12:29
Super Eight, right there. I know my way around buffalo.
12:33
There’s a lot of really, a lot of suburbs here. It’s a smaller city, a lot of suburbs. I grew up here, I moved I went to Syracuse
Nestor Aparicio 12:39
University. I knew you went to Syracuse, and I thought maybe from the east part of the state. No,
12:44
no. I did move to Florida, and I lived there for 16 years. And I always say I’m the only man ever who voluntarily left Florida to move back to Buffalo New York. Did involve a girl. No, no. Career. I started my radio career at a small radio station in south of Sarasota. But after about four or five years, you know, when you’re you know, and all of us in this business, you butt your head against the ceiling. You think, okay, is this it like I really want, you know, especially when you’re young. I actually, I grew up an athlete, and I was coaching. I actually left radio, and for 10 years, I was a high school football coach and social studies teacher and and it was actually the head girl, everything. And let’s go to civics right now. Civics under with alcohol. I don’t want to get that in the political season. I definitely don’t want to do that now. Just go house rock with me right now. We get, we get, not civics. We
Nestor Aparicio 13:32
for civics, though. I mean, come on now. I mean, it really is. It
13:36
actually was a great. It was actually great. I taught, I was a I taught high school seniors. And part of it was, I did teach US history and I taught. It was half the year economics, half the year government. I love teaching government, actually. And, you know, teach how to operate was great anyway. And I was coaching football and teaching, but I always wanted to get back into the radio. I loved my hometown of Buffalo, and I married a woman. I met her down there. She’s from Germany originally. My wife Yana. And Yana said, you know, Buffalo weather’s like Germany weather. So if you really want to go back and follow your dream, and we did
Nestor Aparicio 14:10
it, Sal capaccio is here giving us, I loved your life story. Anytime I bring a guest on, like, Who’s this guy? What does he know? Well, you know what? I have an interesting story,
14:19
and I like to share that story, Nestor to a lot of people who I was 37 when I actually moved back to Buffalo to restart my radio career. I worked part time at WG, our sports radio 550 and I substitute taught in the city of Buffalo every day just to get by. And now here I am, 11 years later, as you know, building a brand that I’ve built, and I’m on an NFL sideline every Sunday and traveling with the team and traveling with the team and the full time beat reporter and sideline
Nestor Aparicio 14:42
reporter, well, man, that’s all the thing I was going to ask you about, because I will get back to the game. But I do want to talk about the community. I have friends in Depew and Cheektowaga and Amber Hearst north, Tonawanda and Lackawanna me and all the media people you know, the jaworskis and the the vicarious and the people. Live there, right? But, yeah, but I have friends that have been there forever. My friend was SIG, Mike Balani, ran the bisons and all that. So all of these years are coming up there and being a part of it. I still fly into buffalo almost once a year, because I go to Toronto. I love Toronto. I love Russia. I love Getty Lee. I like it, you know, I come up with,
15:17
I’m a drummer so obviously, well, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 15:21
I come in, I hit some pancakes. I got a little egg diner, little broken yolk joint over by the airport with my buddy, and then. But I go through buffalo every because you go through the Peace Bridge, unless you’re going to go north up toward Niagara, but I usually go through the city just to vibe it out. It’s always a little gray. It’s not it looks a little bit like Harrisburg. It’s a really small city community. And from the minute I land there, there’s Josh Allen ads and Bill stuff everywhere in a tiny, little airport. And from the minute you go out, it’s buffalo is different. And I don’t mean Green Bay different. I just mean different in the way that the bills are. I’m looking behind you. You have some picture of Josh Allen that looks like a family portrait that, if
16:09
be on the wall. And, no, that’s that funny thing from like, Step Brothers, is it? And it’s Josh and Ken
Nestor Aparicio 16:14
Coleman, right? It looks like a family portrait that was taken at Olin Mills, you know? And, but that’s what the bills are. It reminds me of what the Colts were here in a community thing. And I have such admiration, and more than that, it’s different than the lions winning, or even the Vikings winning because of the communities. I just think buffalo is this set off to against the water. It gets dumped on snow. It’s up against Canada to all the bad things that have happened your football team and whatever you have, Bon Jovi trying to steal it. I want you to win. I mean, I don’t necessarily want you to out us this week and be but I do want buffalo to, like, have a I want to see what the hell happens. Buffalo has a parade in February. I really
16:55
we’d love for that to happen. And, you know, obviously, as you know the community, well, we also a big hockey City, and we’re going through a really tough time with our hockey team as well.
Nestor Aparicio 17:03
Vegas, the night that the stars won and the puck didn’t go in with hashik. Don’t start me on that. I remember that buffalo got screwed, yeah,
17:11
for sure. And, you know, I mean, I think you know we’ve, we’re knowing we’re known for in this community. You know the heartbreak in sports, right? And you know Baltimore, you know with the Colts leaving in the 80s and, you know, getting and getting a team back, and then finally winning a Super Bowl and a couple more, or whatever, another Super Bowl, you know, I think that, no, it’s kind of, it changes the perception of the city, of the fan base, of the sports teams, no doubt, you know, and we love the bills here. They’re a part of the fabric. I always say buffalo is really kind of known for, like, 14, four things, snow and weather, Niagara Falls, of course, chicken wings, maybe number one in the Buffalo Bills, and really even the sabers, but they’re not very good right now. But people love their sports teams are part of the fabric of the community, and everything you mentioned earlier, before Super Bowl losses and wide right? We went through 17 years of not going to the playoffs, 17 year playoff drop. And I think it brought everybody even closer together. And in that time, the whole thing, Bill’s mafia became a thing and created and now we have this, this guy, this guy named Josh Allen, who they have cereal boxes of Josh’s jacks right
Nestor Aparicio 18:13
behind you there.
18:16
Yeah. I mean, now you have him. He’s amazing, and what he’s done to put this team in the city and on the map. We’re very sensitive to a lot of that, because we get made fun of with our weather and our teams losing. And you know, there’s, there’s a, there’s a very big sense here of us versus them mentality in Buffalo, because of that, I think even more so than you get in a lot of other cities, because we try to tell everybody how great the city is. And you know, you’ve been here, it’s a city of good neighbors. We help each other and other. There’s snowstorms. We had a snowstorm two years ago where, you know, close to 30 people died because they froze to death, and their cars are trying to get somewhere because the snow came so much. And you hear other heroic stories that go on in situations like that. And that’s what we are. And I think that we wear that on our on our, on our we’re very prideful. We wear it on our sleeves, emotionally, and when it comes time for a game like this, you know, really, really comes out about how much of a swing it could be for this community well, and for me, who was
Nestor Aparicio 19:09
up there watching the Oilers lose with Warren Moon, and watching them win and beat the Raiders back in the day, there was that period where there weren’t games in January in Buffalo Ever. And this is we’ve never not had it, right? We didn’t have football. Got it stolen team comes back. Billick Ray, John Ogden, boom. We won a Super Bowl. And then from that moment on, you know, we call it Festivus here, right? Like it’s this time of year, the purple lights and all that. I don’t want to say it’s almost passe here, because it’s not amongst the 20 and 30 year olds who haven’t won. You know, my dad lifted Ordell Bracey in 58 right? And then there was the Johnny you and Super Bowl three, triple five. I mean, we’ve had these errors of football here that have ended with championships. I mean, like we’ve, you know, won 158, 59 won again. At 71 lost our team and still won again. You know, as. Century started, and I think for Buffalo, there’s no one in a buffalo closet that’s ever experienced it. I feel like Josh Allen’s your best hope at this point. And I feel like it’s games like this that for your community. I remember when it really mattered here. I’m not being a dick, but there were 10,000 seats available on Saturdays. Who was 25 degrees here. People in Buffalo are thinking like that. And, I mean, I was sort of shocked when I saw the the the the blimp shot of the new stadium next the old sam I’m like, how did they ever get the new stadium built? Because it’s in the way of the tailgating. Well, it’s actually
20:36
going to be a part of it. There was a lot of talk about that stadium going downtown. There was a huge debate. And there’s a lot of reasons why, money I’m why money, obviously, is a big deal, but one of the things that they really wanted to maintain is the tailgating atmosphere. And as you know, Orchard Park has a lot of space for tailgating, and lot of the old stadium will be used. Some of the you know, for the parking lot, they actually are, believe it or not, Nestor in the new stadium, they’re making the parking spots bigger to have more space to tailgate for people, perfect. Which is amazing, right? But there’s a
Nestor Aparicio 21:05
lot of that’s a well planned strategy. That’s a good year. Yeah, people’s money in New York. We can’t
21:10
wait for that stadium. It’s going to be great. The stadium, you know, it’s, it’s, actually, there’s not a bad seat in the house, but it’s an old stadium. It’s over 50 years old. There’s one tunnel in, one tunnel out. There’s a lot of issues with it. And
Nestor Aparicio 21:19
the reason why? Yeah, but you leave the press box and have to get down right now, right,
21:23
right for us, there are but, you know, for fans, you walk into that lower bowl and you there’s not a bad seat in the house. Oh, it’s a, I mean, it’s a great spot
Nestor Aparicio 21:30
to watch. Listen, this is full disclosure. I spent a half an hour on Monday morning. A, trying to talk my wife into going. B, trying to talk Luke into going, because we’re going to Kansas City if we win this week. And, you know, my press credential, I’m not really a media member anymore, so I have to sit out in the stands and pay for a ticket, which I’ve never had. I’ve done that a million times, and I really, I think it’s going to be a glorious experience, cold as hell. I mean, I would if it were 38 I do it 18 is a little like crazy for me. I was at the mile I’ve been at cold games. I I don’t need any more pelts on my wall about you know, as I’m getting older, I don’t like being cold, but for people to go, it doesn’t feel cold when you’re there, because it’s so it’s benching, it’s closed, and it’s the way Lambo was before they made a spaceship on top of it. You’ve made half a spaceship before Ralph Wilson left us on yours. But it still has the in. It still has the vibe that it had at rich Stadium in 1987 for
22:20
me. Oh, yeah. And they the new stadium. I don’t know if you know this, it doesn’t have a dome, people. Can you lament that? But there was a lot of things that happened, and one of them was they, they pulled the season ticket holders and others and said, and basically their feedback was, hey, we don’t mind being cold. We just don’t want to be wet. So there’s going to have a canopy, and 64% of the seats are going to be covered. Germany, for your wife’s from, yeah, yeah. And that’s where they actually, have you ever been to London for Tottenham Hotspur? It’s modeled after that stadium actually, with the campaign. And if you’re lower to the field, you won’t be covered. But the stadium now is kind of like this, where the stands come up and you’re on the third deck. The new stadium is pitched like this, so you’re up top, you’re gonna be right on top of the field, kind of looking down, and that’s to keep a lot of the noise in the people close to it seeming to be more of a home field advantage. And if you doubt are on the the area where you’re not covered, you also will have, though, however, the ability to go underneath, into the club area. You’ll go up and you’ll be able to get warm. So they kind of have a good compromise, but they have a lot of incredible technology when it comes to the weather and snow removal and wind it’s called Wind confusion. Nestor, I’m not kidding you, right now, when the wind comes into this stadium, it goes down to the bowl, it swirls around. But in the new stadium, it’ll be standing up, and there’s actually have this three prong mesh that when the wind hits it, it’ll actually make it dissipate before it gets down to the field. It’s going to be
Nestor Aparicio 23:36
incredible. Sal capacchio, that that’s science, in addition to social studies and serious football, we’ve had back onto the field. You can find Sal at Sal sports up in Buffalo, New York. He is a WGR 550 when he’s not rocking or teaching and digitally creating. I’m looking at the Instagram here, stopping the run. Yep, the Ravens have done it as well as anyone on the front and you said that the bills are going to want to run the football. It’s cold night. We get it all. Yeah, um, give me the success rate on that and why that’s going to work now. Um, because from a from, from a beating the Raven standpoint, some teams have thought, yeah, we’ll try to run it, and then they just wind up stopping because they get behind now and they have to stop. But more than that, it hasn’t the Ravens haven’t been run out of the gym by anybody.
24:23
Literally, no, and I don’t think the bills would think they could do that, but it’s for the bills. It’s not about, oh my god, we’re gonna run and run for 200 yards like they did last week. That was a surprise for the bills. It’s about controlling the game and not letting you just then tee off on. Josh Allen, hey. I mean, James Cook has 1000 yards on the year. The bills have three really good running backs, all that can do things in the passing game as well. And that’s what also kind of gets teams to back off a little bit you want to throw the ball to James Cook, or Ray Davis, who’s actually a concussion protocol right now, or Ty Johnson. The bills can do that as well. The bills went into last week’s game against the Denver Broncos. The Denver Broncos were, let me get their numbers here on defense last week. We’re just going to throw this up real quick. Excuse me, going into the game, the Denver Broncos were the number two ranked rush defense, only behind the ravens and the bills ran for 210 yards on them because they just controlled the game. And they said, you know, we’re going to make sure that you you know, we keep ourselves in manageable situations and stay on the field. I agree it’s going to be a very difficult task, but that’s what the bills will want to do. I would say too, though the bills offensive line may be playing as good as any offensive line in the NFL right now. They really can do a lot of things. They have two outstanding tackles, and Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown. They have a really great offensive line coach and Aaron Cromer. So I think both teams will run. Want to run the ball against the other. We know that there Henry can he did that against the Buffalo Bills. And sure you have Josh Allen, and if it’s not, if you’re not running, you’re gonna have to throw the ball. And they’re very comfortable with that about the bills. For the bills, it’s not about the numbers in the running game. It’s about controlling the game with the running game. But they were just able to absolutely bulldoze a really good Denver front last week, also icing
Nestor Aparicio 26:01
Lamar. Let Lamar sit on the bench with his jacket, run and sit there for eight minutes and wait, wait his turn. I mean running the ball if you can’t stop it, even if it’s not about Derek Henry, you know, boat racing and running 60 yards for a touchdown. I’m talking about six and eight yards and a class of flurries, or whatever it’s going to be. Um, lastly, yeah, I want to hear your opinion on Lamar from seven years ago to four years ago to now, to this week, seeing him in the flesh, FACING ELIMINATION in his hands there, there’s a point for me, from the day he was drafted. And I’m unabashed. I’ve been on the radio every minute of every day here for 40 years. I’ll, I’ll stand up say I was right. I was wrong. I didn’t love him running into linebackers. Um, sure, I never. I haven’t seen a lot of quarterbacks get better with accuracy. Like, I mean, that’s what they thought of Kyle bowler here. I mean, we,
26:54
I think Josh Allen might be even higher on that, as far as how much he got better for the accuracy. The
Nestor Aparicio 26:58
road is littered with quarterbacks that I can fix him and I can make him more accurate, right? Because he’s unpolished and he’s 21 some guys can get better. Lots of you know, I mean the Geno Smith and the reclamation. I mean Sam darnold, until Sunday night happened, right? So I’m for all of that. But when it comes to Lamar, I always thought that mesh point thing, from the minute I saw it with Mark Ingram seven years ago, I thought was going to wind up on the ground too much, you know, just in a general sense, seven years in, that’s the thing I was totally wrong about, because it’s not just the four interceptions and 41 touchdowns that we, you know, our fan base can make the MVP candidacy debate, or the 2000 yards of every or the 900 yards that lamars Run For. To me, it’s the turnover thing, and they look they turned the ball over three times against the steels and fell on it the first time around Christmas Day, right? So falling on fumbles, not having fumbles, this has not been a problem in this franchise, whether it was Roman running the offense, you know, whoever the center’s been, Linder bomb. Before that, there’s been some snappy issues and shotgun and whatnot, but in a general sense, this team has penalty problems, but not Yep. And I think that that’s been the most shocking part of the Lamar thing for me, as well as just how great he’s been athletic and all of that. But I thought that that would create turnover problems.
28:17
So let me give you my view on Lamar and its ties into Josh and that draft class and these quarterbacks, which are, you know, I think one thing I’ve really learned here is how much organization and situation matters. And I think both Josh and Lamar went to the really, really good places, and that’s why we’re seeing and we saw the growth in both these guys, you know. Why is Sam darnold had, I know, last night aside, right in the last couple weeks aside, why is Sam darnold now totally playing the way he is? Or Gino Smith, as you mentioned, we’ve seen these guys have these Reclamations while they’re in different situations where I think you can look back and say those teams they were with, and in those cases, the Jets, by the way, both of them, you know, they they have so much turnover, so much chaos, there’s no stability. There you have the Buffalo Bills. At the time they drafted Josh didn’t have stability, because Sean had just come in the year before. But now you have what, every NFL team COVID here in Buffalo, which is an owner, a GM and a head coach on the same page with development, with vision, and they did a great job with Josh Lamar. Same thing to me. The ravens are a model franchise for how stability, how stable they are, and their head coach, John Harbaugh, who’s been there for so long, and their ownership and their front office, and they really created a structure to develop these guys. And I think it matters. I’ve always said this Nestor, and I believe this, if Josh Allen had been drafted by the Jets. He might not be a bust, but he certainly wouldn’t be Josh Allen. We know today, if Sam Darrell had been drafted by the bills, he wouldn’t be Josh, but I think he’d be a very serviceable, good quarterback. They would have brought him along the right way. And I think what I saw from Lamar was right away, especially that second year in 2019 where he just blows the league away. And like his athleticism, because they. Put him in a great situation. They developed in the right way. Situation matters and well, they
Nestor Aparicio 30:04
put the right players around him. No one else wanted Willie Snead to be cracking down blocking in 2019 I mean, I saw that part of how they’ve built everything around him where other teams would have they didn’t want him because they didn’t want to rebuild their project. Even two years ago, when the Colts could add on the Falcons to say, any of those teams could have just overwhelmed with money when he was restricted, made the Ravens really pay through the nose. Nobody did that because nobody wanted to rebuild their program around him well.
30:30
And that has to come with the not only the vision you have, but how you structure your roster. And again, to me, the two words I use all the time in Buffalo, I and Chris Brown, who does our play by play on the bills Radio Network, says this all time. We’re both very much about this. Player Development in this organization, in Buffalo, is as good as it is in anywhere in the league, and it’s as good as it has been in the night since the 1990s or ever in this organization. It’s probably the same in Baltimore in a lot of ways. I get it right, but I know from our standpoint here, that’s what I think you have in Baltimore player development when you have a GM and an owner, a GM and a head coach, and I know they’ve had a little bit of change there in Baltimore, we have an owner, GMA, head coach, that are on the same page, and allows your GM and your front office to say, we can draft a guy or bring in a guy, he could say in the practice squad for a year or two, and when it’s his time, he’s gonna be ready to play. And you have to have that vision when you’re constantly changing your GM, your head coach, your system, and you’re going from three, four to four, three, you’re going from different offensive coordinators. But that’s what makes Lamar so unique, as well, in Baltimore, as opposed to Buffalo. Now, last few years, Josh has had different OCS because of Brian dable moving on, and they fired Ken Dorsey. In Baltimore, you’ve had even more OCS, right? And yet, yeah, here he is incredibly, incredibly talented, no matter, regardless of the offense they put around him. I’m a big Lamar fan. I am. I’ll go back to what I said earlier. I just think it’s, it’s a shame that the two fan bases have to trash the other guy. I think we should all really appreciate how special it is to be able to watch these two talents right now, and what they’re they’re able to do in the NFL,
Nestor Aparicio 31:53
don’t trash anybody out there. And if you leave trash into buffalo parking lot, picking up this weekend, heading up to Buffalo, we’re shuffling off for the biggest football game we’ve had here in a long, long time, South capacio covers all things Buffalo Bills does it as well as anyone at Sal sports. You could also find him at WGR. He’s out on the sidelines at 550 if you see Murph, tell him I said hello, old school and Bucha up on those sidelines down there, right the little battery opera. What do you got going on? I
32:24
do I got I gotta. I get gloves with I could put a battery in the in the pocket here, the zip. But my wife gave me these great things. You like they literally, they’re really awesome. I use them for the first time. You just turn them on and after your charge, and you put them right in your palm. I also go near that big heater on the sidelines. But I learned my lesson, that heater that they have, it looks like a missile that is so hot. I actually burnt my glove down to the insulation one time. So you have to be very careful people. I’ve seen people burn their pant legs. Their shoes have melted. Yeah, you gotta be very careful down there. But I bundle up. I’ve been in I’ve been in colder weather than 18. It’ll be cold though, Dad, I’m not dismissing that, but you know, that’s kind of what you do when you’re in Buffalo or even other places in Chicago, on Christmas Eve, just a few years ago, was the coldest I think I’ve ever been on the sidelines. It might have been about minus 10, minus 12 with the wind chill. It was incredible. So you just had and in that game, I wore ski goggles because the wind was so bad, it was like your your your eyes were watering on the sidelines. It’s the wind
Nestor Aparicio 33:20
really, right? As much as it’s anything, dude, bundle up. I mean, it’s gonna be great Sunday night. Great night of football. I love having you on the program. Uh, maybe one day we’ll hit a YouTube show together at the new buffalo stadium, or something like that. All right. Hey,
33:32
for sure, I know they’re gonna bring a lot of big hacks into town, no doubt about it.
Nestor Aparicio 33:36
Well, well, you know, I know my way to Buffalo, and I know, you know you could take me a little wing tour. If I come up there, I absolutely promise. Let’s start with Frank and Theresa. We’ll work our way down Main. Uh, he is South capacio. I am Nestor. We’re getting ready for some great football. Luke’s out knowings Mills all week long, Maryland, crab cake tour returns to libs grill on February 12. We’re calling that the day after the parade around here. I’m Nestor. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we never stopped talking Baltimore, positive.
