The Buffalo Bills have announced their next head coach, Joe Brady. The guy to get over the Sean McDermott hump. You know. The hump that saw some of the most success ever with the NFL iteration of the Bills. In other words, the team needs to go from an elite head coach to an even better one.
It’s not remotely crazy then that the hire has been met with general cries of dissatisfaction. The rationale for most fans is that it’s “more of the same.” Although in many cases it’s been vitriol toward Joe Brady
himself.
Let me level with everyone right out of the gate. Joe Brady was not my first choice either. I had him somewhere in the middle. I was hoping for Greg Udinski or Klint Kubiak so we could really gamble and shoot the moon. I was dreading Daboll or McDaniel who have both flubbed out of head coaching jobs recently as a result of their inability to be effective CEOs.
That said, as of right now Joe Brady is the head coach of our favorite team and that means I want him to have success. I don’t think that’s crazy either, so hear me out for a minute…
How much do Bills fans hate this move?
Our very own Sara Larson thought it would be fun to take a survey of fans’ reactions with an optimistic spin. From the tweet below, you can see that Sara asked for positive vibes only.
Well, I read through the replies and uh, it ain’t great. There are some positive things, including points I’ll make below on how good the offense actually was and how a little familiarity isn’t the worst thing. Most of the replies though… yikes.
Why all the hate?
Familiarity breeds contempt
“If we were so eager to get rid of McDermott, why hire McDermott junior?” That’s essentially the gist of what I’ve heard. Now I might be the only one who can get away with this, but technically what I have in quotes is a bit of a strawman argument. No one has literally called him McDermott junior that I’ve seen, but there is a vibe that Brady is just more of the same. He’s not.
You might immediately react and say “well the offense will still be the same” and there’s some truth to that (not completely though, hold on a second). I’ll also argue that “more of the same” in Joe Brady’s case really wouldn’t be so bad (that’ll be all the rest of the sections so sit tight).
I’ll say it again firmly, Joe Brady will not be just more of the same. There’s quite a few reasons for that, but here’s a few bullet points. Change is coming.
- It’s a near certainty that Brady ran his own offense completely. McDermott had input. Had. That influence is no longer there. Brady will change accordingly. How much and in what ways remain to be seen, but it’s inevitable there will be change.
- Assistant coaches will change as well. Whichever coach we landed we need to hope they’re willing to listen to input/information from other people and grow as a coach. That’s the same for Brady or anyone else you might have wanted. New assistant coaches will bring new voices and that will also cause a shift (either Brady listens or it creates conflict, but there will be change).
- It’s highly likely that Joe Brady learned some defensive stuff from Sean McDermott. There is no reason to think that McDermott created a clone of himself. This is a more significant shift than on the offense where we have some continuity in Brady. The defense will change.
I’m not in the business of fibbing so let’s be clear to wrap this section up. Joe Brady getting the nod does likely mean the LEAST amount of overall change compared to other candidates. I am arguing it won’t just be McDermott 2.0, but I won’t argue bigger changes were available.
Joe Brady sucks though
Yeah, no. Strong disagree on that. When the Bills were in their Tyrod Taylor era, I started expressing what I called the “weakest link” theory for teams. When considering a player or coach as a weakness we’re basically calling them the weakest link in their respective chain. If I had a literal chain and the weakest link could restrain the Fenris Wolf, you’d have no argument to say that link “sucks.” It might be weaker than the links next to it, but that chain is still reeeeeeally strong.
Now for another Skareism. The only stat that matters is the score. Everything else is just context. If Joe Brady is the weakest link he’s hardly creating a weak chain.
For 2025:
- 28.3 points per game (4th)
- 2.70 points per drive (2nd)
For 2024:
- 30.9 points per game (2nd)
- 2.92 points per drive (2nd)
Not convinced by just points? In 2025 they had the fourth most yards per game, the best rushing game per game and second best per play, and fourth best yards per drive. The Bills had the highest time of possession in the league as well, which helps the defense out. In 2024, they had the third highest scoring rate with a score on nearly half of their drives, and the second lowest turnover rate in the league.
In Brady’s two full seasons as the offensive coordinator he helped Josh Allen to a very well-deserved MVP win (and a finalist this season). He also helped bring the rushing title to Buffalo by letting James Cook all year long.
Still not convinced? In Joe Brady’s two seasons the following equation has been unequivocally true:
Allen + Brady > Mahomes + Reid
I made that comment earlier and it was brought to my attention that perhaps Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid had regressed. They have. That’s 100% true. The gold standard in the NFL had down years, with this year’s down year being more down than anyone would have expected. They regressed. The Buffalo Bills didn’t. Brady took success we saw from Daboll and then Ken Dorsey and sustained it for two and a half years, two of which were firmly on Brady’s shoulders.
He’s predictable
Sometimes he is. Undeniably that’s true. Here’s a question though. Which game specifically do you bekieve we lost as a rwsult Per analysis after the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers this year, Joe Brady called the same play 29 times. Please read that sentence again. Here’s comments from T.J. Watt on the game: “I’ve never seen a team run the same play as much as they ran it today and have as much success as they had. I mean, I’m out of words for it.”
Buffalo ran for 249 yards against Pittsburgh, about three times the amount they had been allowing on average. Buffalo maintained the ball for over 41 minutes of game clock. Now read THAT sentence again. They won 26 – 7. Buffalo beat the **** out of the Steelers with predictable.
I ran some numbers for my sister and friend (we have a football chat group). On 1st & 10, the most open down/distance combo when it comes to the playbook, the Buffalo Bills ran the ball 265 times compared to 158 passes, or 63% rushing plays. That’s predictable.
I compared that to the two Super Bowl bound teams. The Seattle Seahawks run on 1st & 10 about 54% of the time and the New England Patriots run on 55% of those situations. The Ravens, another prolific run offense chooses a run play 58% of the time.
There is no argument against Joe Brady being predictable at times. Buffalo averaged just under five yards per carry in that situation, which is insanely high. Teams knew it was coming. Doesn’t mean they knew how to stop it.
You can see an avalanche coming. That doesn’t mean you can stop it.
He’s had some inexplicably bad games
This is also true. Prior to the Denver Broncos in the Divisional Round, I had written articles pinning the blame for every single loss before that on the offense. I still stand by that. That said most of the losses were due to turnovers. Joe Brady does not design turnovers. I will concede he can create schemes and plays that increase or decrease the odds though so he isn’t blameless either.
Here’s the other article I could have written in the other direction. The offense bailed out the shaky defense just as often, if not more so. The defense allowed 40 points to the Ravens and the offense still won it. They allowed 32 points to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 34 to the Cincinnati Bengals, and 31 to the Patriots in the second contest. The offense made all of those games a win.
Buffalo had five games where they scored 20 or less which is at not ideal. New England had four such games. Seattle also had five. Neither have the same overall efficiency as the Bills.
While we’re calling out other teams, if any Daboll fans are out there I know that 13 seconds is (validly) a concern for many fans, but I would argue that it’s nothing compared to the Daboll wind game (which Sean McDermott didn’t override mind you). That’s not unprecedented either. There was a very similar game against the Eagles in the rain that was just as frustrating. If you’re an eye test fan, I’ve never seen Brady do anything as remotely as frustrating as the wind game play calling.
Let’s throw out a few more numbers. The numbers are 24, 28, 38. I’m guessing these don’t mean anything to you. Those are the three worst defensive performances as defined by points allowed by the 1985 Chicago Bears. Arguably the most historic unit of football on the defensive side had three games where the faltered.
Even the Greatest Show on Turf Rams units had at least two blah games per season. In 2001, they had four games at or below the 20 point mark.
Blah games happen, as long as they don’t happen in the playoffs we’re good.
I just don’t like the Brady offense
Okay, now define the Brady offense for me? This last season was the worst sack volume (40) and rate (8.0%) of Josh Allen’s career. Yikes, we should definitely look for ways to lessen that. Perhaps we should tap into Allen’s best year. When he was only sacked 14 times at a 2.8% rate. Let’s go ask the offensive coordinator at the time for idea. That conversation can happen, but it will involve a mirror. Joe Brady orchestrated both those results. Which one will 2026 hold? I’m hoping more like 2024.
“I don’t want a ball control offense that limits Josh Allen.” Josh Allen is exciting, I get that. This year the Buffalo Bills passed 495 times compared to 547 rushing attempts. That’s definitely a run first team. They comfortably led the league in rushing attempts. Here too, Joe Brady needs only look in the mirror for ideas on flipping that script. In 2024, the Bills passed 520 times, compared to 491 rushing attempts.
In 2025, Josh Allen’s intended air yards was pretty low at 7.1 yards on average. For those of you new to intended air yards (IAY), it’s a measure of the average distance the ball travels through the air before reaching the target (all passes not just completed). This means it’s a strict measurement of the throw distance. In 2024, this measure was 8.3 yards for Allen which is a drastic difference.
Add it all up and (and other stats) and it’s a similar conclusion to what I had for McDermott’s defense, only with just two years of data. You can likely find some philosophical stuff that stays the same year to year. McDermott loved nickel. He loved zone. But year to year there are variations as a result of personnel changes, whims, and who knows what else.
It doesn’t guarantee Brady will keep evolving, but as of January 2026 no one except Joe Brady could tell you what the Joe Brady offense actually is.
You convinced me, let’s start measuring his gold jacket
All I’m saying is I’m willing to give Joey Brady a chance. He’s not without his warts. I didn’t have the energy to see if I could find data on his screen game for instance. I’ve definitely been puzzled by play design and play calls from him. I still think even with his flaws, he’s led an elite offense for two years running. It wasn’t that long ago that I was worried that he’d spend too much time prepping his interviews to be the head coach of other teams and it would sink our offense in the playoffs. We know other teams were interested too.
Joe Brady is going to need to prove it and the way this all went down, he’ll be under the microscope way more than any other person would have been. For what it’s worth, I’m hoping he does not in fact suck. If anything, I’ll be ecstatic for him to destroy any reluctance I still have on this development. Because as always…
Go Bills!
