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Most new NFL head coaches arrive at their jobs with muted expectations: Win a few more games than last year. Maybe make the playoffs. Stop embarrassing us as a franchise and a city.
For Joe Brady, new head coach of the Buffalo Bills, the expectations are more straightforward: Win a Super Bowl. Or else.
That's what happens when you take over a team that won 12 games last season, a team quarterbacked by an MVP in the absolute prime of his career, a team that's spent the last seven years beating its fists bloody on the heavy iron door of the playoffs. Forget honeymoons; Brady's seat may as well be warm already. And he's just fine with that.
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"I didn't take this job to shy away from expectations. I sure as hell did not do that," Brady said days after taking the job. "I'm embracing it. I'm understanding it. And I'm meeting it full-on. I know what I signed up for and I'm going to embrace it because no one rises to low expectations. I want what this city wants."
Brady, 36, is the youngest current NFL head coach, but in the era of Sean McVay, age ain't nothing but a number. Here's another number: 29.6, the number of points Buffalo has averaged in the past two seasons with Brady as offensive coordinator. That mark is second in the league only to Detroit. In the two seasons Brady has been the full-time OC, Buffalo has ranked in the top 10 in average yards per game, rushing yards per game, passing yards per game and red zone efficiency.
(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports)
Those are impressive numbers, pacing the kind of seasons that shouldn't end up short of the Super Bowl — or so Buffalo's leadership decided last season. The Bills have played their way into the postseason in each of the last seven years, winning five division titles, but only twice has Buffalo reached the conference finals.
Nobody in Buffalo wants to relive the four-Super Bowls, zero-rings era, but at least the Bills were in the big game back then. Now? Tom Brady and his dynastic run with the Patriots is long over, but the Bills have slammed hard into Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs so many times that the rest of the AFC had time to arm up around them.
Sean McDermott led the Bills through all those postseasons, and it's impossible to deny his big-picture success. Buffalo fans enjoyed a luxury few other teams did, knowing that they were almost certain to make the postseason every year. The Bills' postseason window was open wide enough to just stroll through it, year after year. Yet somehow, they failed, year after year.
What convinced Buffalo owner Terry Pegula to move on from McDermott? A crying Josh Allen, apparently.
Josh Allen and head coach Joe Brady talk during training camp at St. John Fisher University on July 29, 2026 in Rochester, New York. (Photo by Joe Hrycych/Getty Images)
Joe Hrycych via Getty Images
After Buffalo's crushing overtime loss to Denver in the divisional round earlier this year, Pegula had seen enough. He showed McDermott the door, and told a descriptive tale of why he made that call.
"My decision to bring in a new coach was based on the results of our game in Denver," Pegula said after announcing that McDermott had been fired. "I want to take you in the locker room after that game. I looked around, the first thing I noticed was our quarterback with his head down, crying. … He sat there sobbing; he was listless. He had given everything he had to try to win that game. And looking around, so did all the other players on the team. I saw the pain in Josh's face at his presser, and I felt his pain. I know we can do better, and I know we will get better."
Buffalo conducted interviews with nine candidates, including Brian Daboll and Philip Rivers. After several days of intensive scrutiny, including multiple rounds with Joe Brady even though he already had an office in the building, the Bills arrived at a decision: the offensive coordinator would get a promotion.
"We wanted a highly intelligent, aggressive, and excellent communicator," Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane said in announcing Brady's new job. "We wanted alignment. Joe Brady is all of that and more."
Brady began his career at William & Mary, jumping straight from the field to the sideline as a linebackers coach. He quickly coached his way onto Sean Payton's staff in New Orleans, then did a year as offensive coordinator at LSU, where he masterminded what might be the greatest offense in college football history, the Joe Burrow-led national champion behemoth that also featured Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. From LSU, he joined the Panthers for two seasons before arriving in Buffalo for the 2022 season as quarterbacks coach. He took over offensive play-calling duties midway through the 2023 season after a 5-5 start, and Buffalo has gone 31-10 in the regular season since then.
No rookie head coach in history has arrived at his job with quite the pressure Brady has, but then few rookie head coaches arrive with Buffalo's level of talent already in-house. If you're the kind of person who's daunted by a results-oriented environment, well, the job of NFL head coach probably isn't for you.
"I like to think there's not a head coach in the league that buys into a grace period," Brady said on the first day of Bills training camp last month. "I know I can't speak for everybody, but that's not how my brain is wired. I understand what comes with this job, but that's what I wanted. I want the guys to understand what comes with that. I have no pressure. I don't feel any pressure, and that's not in a negative way, but I wake up, I work, I try to do the best job I can do and get my guys in the best position to have success, and they go from there."
Josh Allen walks off the field after the Denver Broncos' 33-30 overtime win in last year's playoffs, ending the Bills' season.
AAron Ontiveroz via Getty Images
So is Brady up to the task of running the whole team? We're about to find out. Players have praised him throughout the offseason, but then you'd expect that.
"The vibe with Coach Brady is young and fresh," tackle Alec Anderson said recently. "It's kind of like having your uncle come over, and he's a little younger than the older brother, and you just know you're going to have a good time." Old-school Bills fans might raise an eyebrow at that — We're not here to have a 'good time,' dammit, we're here to win football games! — but for Brady, attitude is only one piece of a much larger puzzle he's attempting to assemble in Buffalo.
"Be you with us" is Brady's mantra. "I want our guys to be the best version of themselves. I want them to be to their personality," he said earlier this year. "If you're loud, be loud." A player comfortable in their own skin is a better teammate, the rationalization goes; that's quite the tonal shift from old-school, hard-nosed, team-above-all mentality that governed Buffalo under McDermott.
Still, there are some very real non-culture challenges facing Brady. Defense is a significant question mark, particularly along the line. Buffalo ranked 28th in rushing defense last season, an unacceptably low number given the conference's parity and the narrow margins of victory in the playoffs. New defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, a former Bill who came to Buffalo from the same Denver team that knocked the Bills out of the playoffs last season, will have the task of getting much more out of that side of the ball.
Offensively, Brady is already holding a winning hand. He'll start the season with the NFL's reigning rushing yardage leader in James Cook, along with Allen, who's good for multiple wins, and multiple best-of-the-weekend highlights, all by himself. Brady will be calling the plays for Allen, meaning the 2024 MVP will be comfortable and in his element … which is exactly what Brady wants to see.
"I've said this 100 times, and you're gonna hear me another 100 times saying it," Brady said in March. "I want Josh Allen to get everything he deserves in this life, in this career. He puts so much into this game, and that all I want is for him to be holding what he deserves."
Keep Josh Allen from crying, then, and Brady's job will be safe. And there's one straightforward — not easy, but straightforward — way to guarantee Allen won't end the season in tears of sorrow. If Brady can manage that, he'll be more than a hero to Buffalo, he'll be a legend. Simple enough, right?
Continue reading...
For Joe Brady, new head coach of the Buffalo Bills, the expectations are more straightforward: Win a Super Bowl. Or else.
That's what happens when you take over a team that won 12 games last season, a team quarterbacked by an MVP in the absolute prime of his career, a team that's spent the last seven years beating its fists bloody on the heavy iron door of the playoffs. Forget honeymoons; Brady's seat may as well be warm already. And he's just fine with that.
You must be registered for see images attach
Play Yahoo's new College Fantasy Football game: Create or join a league now!
"I didn't take this job to shy away from expectations. I sure as hell did not do that," Brady said days after taking the job. "I'm embracing it. I'm understanding it. And I'm meeting it full-on. I know what I signed up for and I'm going to embrace it because no one rises to low expectations. I want what this city wants."
Brady, 36, is the youngest current NFL head coach, but in the era of Sean McVay, age ain't nothing but a number. Here's another number: 29.6, the number of points Buffalo has averaged in the past two seasons with Brady as offensive coordinator. That mark is second in the league only to Detroit. In the two seasons Brady has been the full-time OC, Buffalo has ranked in the top 10 in average yards per game, rushing yards per game, passing yards per game and red zone efficiency.
You must be registered for see images attach
(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports)
Those are impressive numbers, pacing the kind of seasons that shouldn't end up short of the Super Bowl — or so Buffalo's leadership decided last season. The Bills have played their way into the postseason in each of the last seven years, winning five division titles, but only twice has Buffalo reached the conference finals.
Nobody in Buffalo wants to relive the four-Super Bowls, zero-rings era, but at least the Bills were in the big game back then. Now? Tom Brady and his dynastic run with the Patriots is long over, but the Bills have slammed hard into Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs so many times that the rest of the AFC had time to arm up around them.
Sean McDermott led the Bills through all those postseasons, and it's impossible to deny his big-picture success. Buffalo fans enjoyed a luxury few other teams did, knowing that they were almost certain to make the postseason every year. The Bills' postseason window was open wide enough to just stroll through it, year after year. Yet somehow, they failed, year after year.
What convinced Buffalo owner Terry Pegula to move on from McDermott? A crying Josh Allen, apparently.
You must be registered for see images attach
Josh Allen and head coach Joe Brady talk during training camp at St. John Fisher University on July 29, 2026 in Rochester, New York. (Photo by Joe Hrycych/Getty Images)
Joe Hrycych via Getty Images
After Buffalo's crushing overtime loss to Denver in the divisional round earlier this year, Pegula had seen enough. He showed McDermott the door, and told a descriptive tale of why he made that call.
"My decision to bring in a new coach was based on the results of our game in Denver," Pegula said after announcing that McDermott had been fired. "I want to take you in the locker room after that game. I looked around, the first thing I noticed was our quarterback with his head down, crying. … He sat there sobbing; he was listless. He had given everything he had to try to win that game. And looking around, so did all the other players on the team. I saw the pain in Josh's face at his presser, and I felt his pain. I know we can do better, and I know we will get better."
Buffalo conducted interviews with nine candidates, including Brian Daboll and Philip Rivers. After several days of intensive scrutiny, including multiple rounds with Joe Brady even though he already had an office in the building, the Bills arrived at a decision: the offensive coordinator would get a promotion.
"We wanted a highly intelligent, aggressive, and excellent communicator," Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane said in announcing Brady's new job. "We wanted alignment. Joe Brady is all of that and more."
Brady began his career at William & Mary, jumping straight from the field to the sideline as a linebackers coach. He quickly coached his way onto Sean Payton's staff in New Orleans, then did a year as offensive coordinator at LSU, where he masterminded what might be the greatest offense in college football history, the Joe Burrow-led national champion behemoth that also featured Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. From LSU, he joined the Panthers for two seasons before arriving in Buffalo for the 2022 season as quarterbacks coach. He took over offensive play-calling duties midway through the 2023 season after a 5-5 start, and Buffalo has gone 31-10 in the regular season since then.
No rookie head coach in history has arrived at his job with quite the pressure Brady has, but then few rookie head coaches arrive with Buffalo's level of talent already in-house. If you're the kind of person who's daunted by a results-oriented environment, well, the job of NFL head coach probably isn't for you.
"I like to think there's not a head coach in the league that buys into a grace period," Brady said on the first day of Bills training camp last month. "I know I can't speak for everybody, but that's not how my brain is wired. I understand what comes with this job, but that's what I wanted. I want the guys to understand what comes with that. I have no pressure. I don't feel any pressure, and that's not in a negative way, but I wake up, I work, I try to do the best job I can do and get my guys in the best position to have success, and they go from there."
You must be registered for see images
Josh Allen walks off the field after the Denver Broncos' 33-30 overtime win in last year's playoffs, ending the Bills' season.
AAron Ontiveroz via Getty Images
So is Brady up to the task of running the whole team? We're about to find out. Players have praised him throughout the offseason, but then you'd expect that.
"The vibe with Coach Brady is young and fresh," tackle Alec Anderson said recently. "It's kind of like having your uncle come over, and he's a little younger than the older brother, and you just know you're going to have a good time." Old-school Bills fans might raise an eyebrow at that — We're not here to have a 'good time,' dammit, we're here to win football games! — but for Brady, attitude is only one piece of a much larger puzzle he's attempting to assemble in Buffalo.
"Be you with us" is Brady's mantra. "I want our guys to be the best version of themselves. I want them to be to their personality," he said earlier this year. "If you're loud, be loud." A player comfortable in their own skin is a better teammate, the rationalization goes; that's quite the tonal shift from old-school, hard-nosed, team-above-all mentality that governed Buffalo under McDermott.
Still, there are some very real non-culture challenges facing Brady. Defense is a significant question mark, particularly along the line. Buffalo ranked 28th in rushing defense last season, an unacceptably low number given the conference's parity and the narrow margins of victory in the playoffs. New defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, a former Bill who came to Buffalo from the same Denver team that knocked the Bills out of the playoffs last season, will have the task of getting much more out of that side of the ball.
Offensively, Brady is already holding a winning hand. He'll start the season with the NFL's reigning rushing yardage leader in James Cook, along with Allen, who's good for multiple wins, and multiple best-of-the-weekend highlights, all by himself. Brady will be calling the plays for Allen, meaning the 2024 MVP will be comfortable and in his element … which is exactly what Brady wants to see.
"I've said this 100 times, and you're gonna hear me another 100 times saying it," Brady said in March. "I want Josh Allen to get everything he deserves in this life, in this career. He puts so much into this game, and that all I want is for him to be holding what he deserves."
Keep Josh Allen from crying, then, and Brady's job will be safe. And there's one straightforward — not easy, but straightforward — way to guarantee Allen won't end the season in tears of sorrow. If Brady can manage that, he'll be more than a hero to Buffalo, he'll be a legend. Simple enough, right?
Continue reading...
