When former Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady was announced as the 17th head coach in franchise history, one of the main negative reactions from many commenters was that the move to dismiss Sean McDermott and promote one of his previous assistants didn’t represent a new era. After seven playoff runs with an MVP quarterback in Josh Allen, was replacing a head coach with a member of that head coach’s staff really going to get the team over the hump? Would it even look any different?
With
the Four Horsemen of Assistant Coaches officially hired under the Brady banner (offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, and offensive line coach), it’s a fair assumption to say that we don’t know if the Bills will be better in 2026 than they were in 2025, but they will look different.
Jim Leonhard, hired on Saturday as Buffalo’s new defensive coordinator and play caller, represents a move to a multiple front defense with varying personnel. Simulated pressures, bear (five down) looks, and front-seven stunts and games all mean that Leonhard’s defense is essentially guaranteed to look different than the McDermott iterations over the last nine years. Whether the defensive coordinator title was bestowed upon Leslie Frazier, Bobby Babich, or McDermott himself, the scheme on the non-Josh Allen side of the ball has looked similar and required similar player archetypes for almost a decade.
Per Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, Leonhard, Brady, and Beane are targeting University of Oklahoma assistant head caoch for defense/co-defensive coordinator Jay Valai as a defensive backs coach. Oklahoma under head coach Brett Venables has run a highly aggressive scheme using hybrid players and bear fronts, a further signal of the defensive difference likely to manifest with Buffalo the moment the team starts its install. Admittedly getting the cart ahead of the horse, Valai also represents a potential succession plan if Leonhard finds himself as a head coach in the coming years.
On the offensive side of the ball, the hiring of offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. leans into Joe Brady’s statement from his opening press conference that he’s a member of the Sean Payton coaching tree. Carmichael has served as Payton’s top offensive lieutenant for many years while Payton has remained the play caller. He was an offensive assistant with the Denver Broncos while former Bills quarterback Davis Webb held the offensive coordinator role.
The Carmichael/Payton offenses, whether in Denver or in New Orleans with the Saints, historically pass the ball more than we saw from the Bills in 2025, though they do employ heavier personnel and under-center play action to generate explosives — and it’s a system that values a possession X receiver (both tenants associated with this past year’s Buffalo offense). A functional running back screen game, long a valued piece of the Carmichael/Payton offense, would be a welcome addition to Buffalo’s offense as something lacking for a long time.
The Carmichael hire outlines what Brady would ideally want his offense to look like when not attempting to align with a vision like McDermott’s in prior seasons. It doesn’t look on paper to be as significant a shift like we may see with the defense, but it’s a departure that can give fans new items to sink their teeth into during player acquisition season and offseason practices.
While Brady tactfully dodged the “what will be different” questions at his first conversation with the media as Bills head coach, his hires show that departures from the previous era of Buffalo football should be expected in 2026.
…and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network — see more in my LinkTree!
