The Buffalo Bills fired Sean McDermott because they could not get over the postseason hump, and now Joe Brady has the unenviable job of being the guy who has to do exactly that.
Brady was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach earlier this year after the Bills decided that McDermott’s era had run its course. The change came after another playoff disappointment in a stretch that has included some of the most painful playoff exits in recent NFL history for any franchise. Buffalo had to do something different. Brady was the something different.
The new coach was quoted as saying he was “devastated” by McDermott’s departure, which tells you about the relationship the two of them had built over their years together in Buffalo. That is the dynamic Brady is walking into. He has to honor his predecessor’s work while also being the change agent the franchise hired him to be. That is a difficult balance.
Brady is also one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL at this point. He spent time in college football as an offensive coordinator at LSU, where he helped Joe Burrow win a national championship. He went to the NFL with the Carolina Panthers as a coordinator, struggled there, and eventually rebuilt his stock in Buffalo. The trajectory has been impressive. The head coaching jump is the biggest one yet.
The roster he inherits is talented. Josh Allen is still one of the top quarterbacks in football. The wide receiver group has been rebuilt over the last few years. The defense has playmakers even after some recent attrition. The Bills are not a project. They are a Super Bowl contender that has not gotten over the top, and Brady has to figure out the final piece of the puzzle.
The pressure starts now. Bills fans have been through too many heartbreaking losses to be patient with another rebuild. They expect to win immediately. They expect to make the AFC Championship. They expect to give the Chiefs a real fight when those two teams inevitably meet again in January. Brady knows the standard. He has been around the building long enough to understand what is expected.
The biggest question for the new head coach is whether he can develop the kind of complementary game plans that get the Bills past the elite teams in the AFC. The Allen-led offense has always been explosive. The defense has been good at times. The combination has rarely been clinical enough in critical moments to outlast Patrick Mahomes or to handle the kind of physical playoff games that Baltimore has put together over the years.
Brady has to find that gear. He has to call the right plays in the fourth quarter of playoff games. He has to manage the defense well enough to take it off the field when it matters most. He has to make Allen’s life easier without limiting what makes Allen great. Every Bills offensive coordinator in the last decade has been measured against that exact set of standards, and now Brady has to meet them as the head coach.
The other coaching changes around the AFC do not make life easier. The Bengals are reloading. The Ravens have a new look on defense with Trey Hendrickson. The Steelers signed Aaron Rodgers. The Chiefs are still the Chiefs. Brady is walking into a conference that has gotten harder, not easier.
His first training camp is going to be watched closely. The early-season slate will tell us a lot about whether the Bills are still championship material or whether the McDermott era was the high-water mark. Allen is in his prime. The defense is talented. The pieces are there. The execution has to follow.
Joe Brady has the job everyone in Buffalo dreams about, and he has it because the last guy could not finish the job. The clock starts now.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
