Bills' Josh Allen shares new career goal and it's not Lombardi or MVP
· Yahoo Sports
Josh Allen has another dream beyond bringing a Lombardi trophy to Buffalo.
And like the Super Bowl, which will be back in Los Angeles this year, this other dream lies ahead in L.A. as well.
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Allen has been focused for eight NFL seasons on achieving one sole objective: the Bills winning a Super Bowl.
This week, he named a second one: An Olympic gold medal.
While speaking with NBC about the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics which will feature the debut of flag football as a medal sport with NFL players eligible to participate — He conveyed in no small terms he wants in.
"Being a U.S. Olympic gold medalist is a dream that I've always had," Allen said. "And I've never had the chance to accomplish it."
With international competition in the cultural spotlight at the moment thanks to the FIFA World Cup, a recent NFL MVP voicing their desire to compete in the new Olympic category jumps off the page more than a typical July offseason quote.Allen isn't a quarterback who publicly collects individual goals. He notably categorized his 2024 MVP as a team award, and often in interviews his focus is on the team and their collective goal that they've yet to reach: winning the Super Bowl. So when he volunteered a personal dream at all, it was worth listening.
That dream is older than his NFL career, as Allen grew up in the Michael Phelps era when a generation of American kids growing up during that time witnessed the greatest medalist athlete in Olympic history reach that height of achievement. In order to reach the NFL and the stature that he has, he had to give up another Olympic category sport to do so as to minimize risk to others he competed in.
"I went snowboarding in seventh grade and I was going down a box-jump type situation and I slipped and fell and landed on my left wrist and I broke my left wrist," Allen added. "And then I looked at my dad and he said, 'Son, if you want to continue to play football and baseball and basketball, you can't do this anymore.' So I kind of cut it out cold turkey after that. But I do miss it. I really do miss it."
Football won. Twenty years later, it is the very thing that could pave the way to his Olympic dream coming true.The USA roster for the inaugural squad has yet to be determined, though it would stand to reason that it may include at least two quarterbacks. The IOC green-lit flag football as an LA28 medal sport in October 2023, and the NFL/NFLPA formally cleared the path for active NFL players to participate in May 2025."I don't know if they'd want me," he continued. "I don't know the ins-and-outs really of flag football. I watched that deal, maybe a couple months ago, and it was a much different game than I thought it would be. But I do think that if there is a potential space, I would love to do it."
Flag football at the international level would be a 5-on-5, 50-yard field, no linemen, no running quarterbacks past the line of scrimmage contest that relies on rhythm-and-timing and rewards processing speed and short-area accuracy over arm strength and improvisation. Allen's 2024 MVP season was built on exactly the kind of quick-game decision-making Joe Brady installed when he took over as play-caller. He is a better fit for the international rulebook than he was two years ago, and figures to only be more so by the time LA28 begins July 14, 2028.
USA Football's selection process for the flag football roster will play out across 2027 and early 2028. If Allen is a serious candidate, the conversation about workload, insurance, and how a franchise quarterback under a six-year, $330 million extension gets loaned to a national team will be something Allen and the Bills would need to have. It would also impact his participation in training camp, though considering it would sharpen and potentially further develop the skills that led to his MVP campaign and his style of play as he enters his early 30's stage of his career, the team may likely support it. Especially if the Bills win a Super Bowl before then.Such possibilities open up more from the moment a Lombardi arrives at One Bills Drive. That remains the primary goal. Two dreams, attainable within the same career window.
This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: Bills' Josh Allen shares new career goal and it's not Lombardi or MVP