Josh Allen: MVP is an honor, but I didn't win a Super Bowl ring and that is the only goal
Bills quarterback Josh Allen was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player for the 2024 season, but he still hasn't achieved the one thing he really wants in his career.
Allen says that until he has a Super Bowl ring, his résumé has a hole in it.
'You know, it is such a great honor, and I do appreciate being honored for my work,' Allen told Liam McKeone of SI.com. 'But at the same time, I still didn't win a Super Bowl. Didn't win a ring, and that is the only goal. It's the only focus that I've ever had going into this league.'
Allen said to the extent that the MVP matters to him, it's mostly because a quarterback isn't going to get the MVP award unless his team had a good regular season.
'The one positive, I will say, about winning an MVP means that your team is in a good position,' Allen said. 'You're making the playoffs, you're playing well and you're doing whatever you can to help your team win football games. But at the end of the day, you got to make the playoffs and then you got to win three, maybe four games. And that's what we need to do. And we're going to continue to work as hard as we can and myself included. What can we do to find a way over that hump? So that's the only goal going forward.'
The Bills have had a lot of regular-season success with Allen and have made the playoffs six years in a row. But Allen has yet to lead the Bills to a Super Bowl, and that's the one accomplishment that he's focused on heading into 2025.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

NBC Sports
21 minutes ago
- NBC Sports
Cameron Jordan: Excessive celebration is the dumbest penalty in the NFL, it's OK to taunt
Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan is not a fan of the NFL cracking down on players celebrating. Asked at Fanatics Fest to name the dumbest rule in the NFL, Jordan answered, 'I think it's the excessive celebration.' Jordan said offensive players should be allowed to celebrate their touchdowns, and that it's only fair to also allow defensive players like himself to celebrate. 'I get a sack on a quarterback? Give me five seconds, put the spotlight on me,' Jordan said. The NFL has loosened the reins on celebration rules to some extent but will penalize any celebration that involves taunting an opponent. Jordan doesn't agree with that. 'Let us celebrate. It's OK to taunt,' Jordan said. 'Bring back taunting.'


New York Times
26 minutes ago
- New York Times
With Thunder on top, NBA's ‘wide-open' Western Conference is a thing of the past
Is it parity? Or is it parity plus one? That's my question after watching the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, and it has important implications for everyone else in the Western Conference. We've entered the NBA's parity era, supposedly, with the Thunder being the NBA's seventh different champion in the past seven years. In fact, none of the past six defending champions has even made it past the second round a year later; 11 of the 12 finalists have failed to do the same. Of the past 24 conference finalists, only Boston (2022-23), Miami (2022-23), Minnesota (2024-25) and Indiana (2024-25) have made it back the next year. Advertisement With forces like the collective bargaining agreement's tax aprons and a toxic repeater penalty at work, and the cycle of teams going 'all-in' with draft capital for short title windows, that pattern figures to stay largely intact … with one glaring exception. That exception is the Thunder, who are reigning champions after a dominant 68-win regular season and a 16-7 blitz through the playoffs and appear to be at the beginning of a lengthy stint atop the league's food chain. They will open next season with a 27-year-old MVP and a 24-year-old All-Star. They have a 'redshirt year' lottery pick coming onto next year's roster, six first-round picks in the next two drafts and an innumerable stockpile of future seconds. Every single player on this year's championship team is under contract for next season, and the team is below the luxury-tax line. Every key player except Alex Caruso is 27 or younger. So, yeah, I'd say they're in good shape. And that's before you talk about all the moves they've hit on the margins lately. It has to be maddening for rival front offices to see an already stacked Thunder team trade for Caruso without giving a single draft pick or find Ajay Mitchell in the second round of the draft. Eventually, some of the forces that dragged down other champions may get to Oklahoma City. Stars Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren will need new contracts. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander might not maintain such an exalted level of play. Rivals will poach talent as the aprons close in. Health, always a postseason X-factor, is never guaranteed. And inevitably, things sometimes don't work out like we think: Witness the last time we were in Oklahoma City for the finals in 2012. We thought we'd be coming back every year to see Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; instead, it took 13 years to return. Advertisement Maybe that happens again with the Thunder, and I'm writing about some out-of-nowhere finalists next June. But in terms of being built to last, this iteration of the Thunder looks as iron-clad as any defending champion since the 1991 Chicago Bulls. We could easily be looking at a half-decade run where the other three conference finalists rotate out every year, but it's Oklahoma City five times in a row. So … imagine being one of the other 14 teams in the West. How on Earth are you supposed to beat these guys? Reminder: The Thunder won the conference by 16 games in 2024-25 and still may not have come into the best version of themselves. The entire logic of team-building in the West for the last half-decade has been that 'it's wide open.' Get yourself to a win total in the low-to-mid 50s, and then anything can happen in the playoffs. Veteran teams with title experience, like the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors, could talk themselves into being contenders with a middling playoff seed as long as there wasn't a scary, dominant team in the conference that required a higher level. That's been the case the last few seasons, as the previous three Western Conference finalists before the Thunder won 53, 53 and 50 regular-season games, respectively. Now, that entire logic is flipped upside down; it's definitely not wide open, unless your desired endgame is losing in five in the conference finals. For those who aspire for more, it's either get to the Thunder's level or go home. What does a higher bar do to change the logic in an already cutthroat conference? We've already, perhaps, seen some of the answers, as teams adjust to the idea that it probably takes a 60-win-caliber team to realistically hang with Oklahoma City in a playoff series. A 50-win Denver team and a 48-win Memphis team fired their coaches in the final weeks of the season; Memphis then traded Desmond Bane for four first-round picks in a bid to remix a core that wasn't going to be good enough in the Age of Thunder. The Houston Rockets, meanwhile, bravely went the other way, pushing some chips in on a young team to acquire Kevin Durant after a first-round playoff defeat. Advertisement While this is a bit of a conundrum for older, short-window teams like the Lakers, Warriors, Clippers and Nuggets, they're at a point where their hands are tied. The Thunder's awesomeness is more likely to complicate future decisions about whether to stay all-in than present ones about maxing out what they have. Where it's more of a potential confounding factor is for those still on the rise, or mid-build teams like Memphis. For instance, Houston and the San Antonio Spurs have as much promise for the next half decade as any team in either conference besides the Thunder, but they may now be looking at different strategies to build a roster at the Thunder's level; even after acquiring Durant, the Rockets feel like they're one move away from being on Oklahoma City's level. In a related story, they still can trade five future first-round picks. Meanwhile, ought-to-be-rebuilding teams like the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers should be looking at the future landscape with similar thoughts in mind. With that, those teams still in their building stages might also be looking at how they specifically match up with the Thunder and what advantages they could take into a playoff series. If there's one possible kernel of an answer to the 'How do you beat these guys?' question, it's this one: have a giant forward who can handle. Somebody who can play on the ball but is so big, strong and solid in his decisions that the swarms of Thunder defenders are a mere nuisance. The Thunder don't have a true power forward on their roster, which makes big, powerful players who can handle while facing the basket the closest thing to their kryptonite. There are just not that many of these guys on the planet. Only two players have truly given Oklahoma City trouble over the past two seasons: Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Dončić. (If you're wondering about Denver and Nikola Jokić, the Nuggets struggled against OKC's defense in their seven-game second-round series, allowing 74 Thunder steals in seven games and posting a 15.1 percent turnover rate.) Maybe another player can play his way onto the list (Cooper Flagg, anyone?), but right now, that is the list. It makes sense that a lesser version of the same archetype — Indiana's Pascal Siakam — was such a nuisance for the Thunder in the finals. He alternated between torturing the Thunder bigs on the perimeter and tormenting their smalls in the paint. Even that area of vulnerability may be shrinking; relative to the 2024 Dallas series that Dončić dominated, the Thunder added size in Isaiah Hartenstein and a plus defender against bigger forwards in Caruso. Oklahoma City also still has the flexibility to go out and add a player in that archetype if needed; Gordon Hayward wasn't it, but an overflowing asset chest and a roster of tradable contracts would easily let the Thunder try again. (To provide hypothetical examples, they could trade Ousmane Dieng, Isaiah Joe and both their 2025 firsts to Portland for Deni Avdija or to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson.) Maybe some team out there is building a new mousetrap that will ultimately confound even the Thunder. Could Victor Wembanyama be an ultimate cheat code if he has enough help? Could the Rockets assemble enough grimy athleticism and physicality around Durant to outlast them in 84-83 wrestling matches? Could the Lakers put enough around Luka that he's once again a problem for the Thunder? Is there a Giannis trade to the West that changes everything? Advertisement Without those questions answered, the road map for the next few years is clear. As tough as the rest of the West looks, there's a two-level hierarchy in the conference: It's the Thunder, then a big chasm, then everyone else. For 14 other teams, the maddening part of the puzzle is trying to figure out how to close that gap while the Thunder still have all the advantages in draft picks, youth, cap flexibility and, most importantly, talent. Good luck, everyone, but I do have one final, desperate suggestion: expansion. If it happens and the NBA adds teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, one of you gets to move to the East. (Top photo of Oklahoma City Thunder: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
How Jets coaches are reading Justin Fields' mind, while Fields is winning over teammates' hearts
In the early days, cameras would track his every move on the practice fields. Reporters were flying in from all over the country to watch him throw passes in shorts. Parking at the facility was impossible, and cameramen mostly overtook the Jets' small press conference room. Florham Park, N.J., tucked 30 miles away (or, over an hour of travel time in traffic) from New York City, turned into a travel destination for national NFL media. It got busiest when HBO's 'Hard Knocks' cameras followed the team around during their 2023 training camp — though they mostly followed Aaron Rodgers. Advertisement The Rodgers Circus has since left town, moving 350 miles away to Pittsburgh. In his wake, Florham Park is a lot less crowded. The cameramen are mostly from local outlets. The reporters too. The remaining cameras are still following the quarterback, mostly. The only one tracking his every move is sitting on top of his helmet, a GoPro the Jets have incorporated into their practices to better understand Justin Fields — the how and the why of what he does at the line of scrimmage and as a play progresses. The way Fields operates in between those moments is a lot quieter than what the Jets are used to. That's exactly what Aaron Glenn wants out of his quarterback — and why he was their No. 1 target when they (quickly) decided Rodgers wasn't going to be a fit for their new program. 'He's not trying to be the celebrity quarterback, he's just trying to be himself,' Glenn said, referencing an adage made famous by his mentor Bill Parcells. 'And whatever comes with that, it comes with it. So, he's not trying to impress anybody. He's going out there and he's busting his a– trying to be the best quarterback he can be for this team. Everybody sees that — and I like that.' Expectations are low for the Jets — as low as they've been since the beginning of the Robert Saleh era. This is a team coming off a disastrous 5-12 season full of drama, dysfunction and a quarterback with a proclivity for distraction. Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey gutted the roster in favor of a youth movement. The focus now is on culture, accountability and fundamentals. Any dreams the Jets have of improving in 2025, of getting back on the right track, starts with their quarterback. This new regime is banking on a talented-but-flawed quarterback who was drafted highly, struggled as a passer in Chicago, was traded to Pittsburgh for peanuts then benched with a winning record, and then hit free agency with a lot to prove. The Jets paid him $40 million over two years and are building their offense around his skillset. Their approach this offseason in free agency and the NFL Draft was derived from cultivating the best possible environment around Fields to help him succeed, to get him on a similar track to other highly drafted players who turned things around after being discarded multiple times — Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith and the like. The Jets are pulling out all the stops to help Fields. They need this to work. Much of the criticism of Fields as a passer, dating back to his days with the Bears, centers around his accuracy and his processing at the line of scrimmage. Anonymous reports toward the end of his tenure in Chicago painted the picture of a quarterback who would look everywhere at the line of scrimmage but see nothing — his inner-processing was failing him. There were flashes of the talent that made him a first-round pick in 2021, but he completed only 60.3 percent of his passes in Chicago and threw 30 interceptions in 40 games. Advertisement Since the Jets signed Fields, Glenn has repeatedly alluded to the idea that Fields, in his past stops, was not put in an environment that actually let him play quarterback — as in, throwing the ball and making plays with his arm as much as with his legs. It's an important distinction for a player who has been one of the better running quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen. The Jets are going to run the ball a lot, and Fields will be a part of that — but it won't be his primary role. Glenn brought offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand with him from Detroit, where Engstrand was a crucial part of the creative Lions offense, one of the highest-scoring and most explosive in the NFL. That was an offense built around the efficiency of Jared Goff, surrounding him with explosive and productive weapons — a group that the Jets are trying to replicate, in a way, in New York. The idea: Use Breece Hall and Braelon Allen as a pseudo-Jahmyr Gibbs-David Montgomery duo at running back. The Jets drafted tight end Mason Taylor, offensive tackle Armand Membou and wide receiver Arian Smith, and Glenn couldn't help but compare them to Sam LaPorta, Penei Sewell and Jameson Williams. The Jets signed Josh Reynolds to be the No. 2 wide receiver – he was productive for the Lions over two seasons (2022-23). But the Jets need Fields to complete the puzzle. The No. 1 goal this spring was to get him comfortable with the offense, the schemes, the routes, the progressions — everything he needs to play fast, use his legs and make the right decisions. That's where the GoPro cameras come in. All four of the quarterbacks wore them this spring and it wouldn't be surprising if that continued into training camp. 'It's awesome. I'm just telling you, I can't believe we didn't do this before,' Engstrand said. 'It is unbelievable. We can hear him call the play in the huddle. We can hear him at the line of scrimmage, making his check, whatever it needs, so you can see his eyes, where he's going, and then you can see him go through the progression. You can see everything from his vantage point.' It's the closest the coaching staff can get to actually reading Fields' mind in the moment. Engstrand and Glenn had used them previously in Detroit a couple years ago, and quarterbacks coach Charles London had experience using GoPro cameras as a tool too. They tested it out during rookie minicamp — and loved it. Advertisement After each practice, Engstrand and London are able to sit with Fields and go through each play to see what Fields did, where he was looking, and how and why he made decisions on certain passing plays. It's also been useful in offering a different perspective to show other position groups too, Engstrand said, because they can hear everything including the calls Fields is making. 'It's, what's your pre-snap process?' Engstrand said. 'You break the huddle, what are you looking at? What are we keying? Are we looking in the right areas? What's the concept? If it's a pass play, am I looking in the right spot? There's all sorts of things to talk about with that.' Said Fields: 'It's kind of cool. It's my first time ever doing it, but it's definitely cool, just basically hearing the play call again and kind of just going through making sure you're just doing everything within the process of the play. I like the GoPro a lot.' It's only OTAs and minicamp, where Fields can't be touched and there isn't tackling, but he showed progress throughout the spring. If he was holding onto the ball too long at the start of OTAs, he was making quicker decisions by the end of minicamp. He's thrown dimes, like a 50-yard bomb to Garrett Wilson followed by a throw in the back of the end zone to Reynolds with pinpoint accuracy. But Glenn has been more impressed by some of the throws Fields didn't make, like on the first day of minicamp when he rolled out of the pocket, saw nobody was open and just threw it away rather than forcing it. 'No negative plays,' Glenn said. Fields is putting in the work. 'The biggest takeaway I would say is that this guy is just a workaholic,' Engstrand said. 'He comes in early, he's here late, and he's trying to digest everything and download all the information and do things the right way. He's trying to do things that we're asking, and I think he's really put the next foot forward every day, just trying to stack days, and it's been really good.' The person who is most excited about Fields' arrival had no idea it was even a possibility until it happened. 'A big smile goes on your face,' said Garrett Wilson. Wilson and Fields were teammates at Ohio State but fell out of touch when Fields got to the NFL. From afar, Wilson kept track of one of his favorite quarterbacks. He was bewildered when Fields fell all the way to No. 11 in the 2021 draft. He'd watch film from Fields' Bears days and wonder why receivers weren't making plays when they should have been. By the end of last season, Wilson and Rodgers weren't exactly the best of friends. A relationship that started with promise ended with each taking subtle shots at each other in press conferences. Privately, Rodgers complained about Wilson's tendency to freelance on routes, and there was frustration from Wilson – and others — about how Rodgers was funneling targets to Davante Adams, shying away from running the ball and ignoring Wilson in the red zone. Advertisement Glenn, Fields and anyone in the Jets organization will tell you: That won't happen in 2025. The Jets will run the ball more often this season, maybe more often than any team in the NFL, and Wilson will be getting plenty of targets, in every situation. It helps that Wilson and Fields — who speak every day and often hang out away from the facility — are so close. 'I'll just say that, he trusts me, I trust him, we've got a good communication, we speak to each other well, we know what the other is thinking and that's key,' Wilson said. 'Him being able to say: 'Garrett, I don't want you running like that, that was the wrong route.' Stuff like that in a certain way where he knows I'm not going to take it the wrong way and we're just trying to get the best out of each other. I know what he can do. I still think the world's gotta see it. We all got something to prove on this team.' Added Fields: ''G' has been my guy for a long time now, so I really feel like we haven't skipped a beat.' Fields had won over Wilson before he ever stepped foot in Florham Park. But Fields' approach is winning him fans all over the locker room. His leadership style might not be as obvious or forthcoming as it was with Rodgers, but Wilson pushes back on the idea that Fields is not vocal. 'He's real cool, calm and collected and brings another sense of calm to the offense and just seeing how he works and how diligent he is and how he cares,' Hall said. 'He's trying to build relationships with everybody and how he goes about his business has been fun so far. He's young like us so we talk about a lot of the same stuff, we hang out on the weekends and he's just been cool to be around.' Tight end Jeremy Ruckert, who played with him at Ohio State too, appreciates his calmness. 'Nothing is going to rattle him,' Ruckert said. 'He's built for this team and this area, he wants the pressure. He's built for it. The attitude he brings and the professionalism he has, he's shown it since college. He'll continue to do that and we'll rally around him.' Added safety Tony Adams: 'Guys want to fight for him. Those guys want to go to war for him. He's laid back but you can tell he's confident in himself, confident in his abilities. Advertisement Off the field, Fields has made an effort to spend time with his teammates on both sides of the ball. He went to a golf simulator with offensive linemen and tight ends. He went to a crab boil with teammates one weekend, a get-together at Allen Lazard's place another week and has hung out with linebacker Jamien Sherwood and other defensive players away from the facility too. In this long part of the offseason, he plans on getting some of his offensive weapons together to workout ahead of training camp. 'Guys keep coming up to me saying: Man, that's my guy,' Wilson said. 'He's got a different way about him. It's very commanding in the huddle. Like: Hey, we're messing up. Let's get on that s—. But you get it from the standpoint of, he's not degrading anybody, he's not going to put it a certain way.' Said Glenn: 'Yes, he has a quiet voice, but that quiet voice doesn't mean that people don't hear him. People see the way he works, that speaks more than what you say, and I like that about him because he is himself and he's authentic, and he's not going to change for nobody. I'd rather have that than somebody that's fake.'