The Buffalo Bills are promoting from within to find their next head coach, promoting offensive coordinator Joe Brady into the role, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reported on Tuesday.
Brady will replace his former boss, Sean McDermott, as the head coach, after the latter was fired right after Buffalo’s postseason elimination. He’ll be tasked with climbing the wall that McDermott couldn’t: getting the Bills to finally win a Super Bowl.
2026 marks the fifth year that Brady will have been in the Bills’ organization. He started off as the quarterbacks coach from 2022 to 2023, after being fired as the Panthers’ offensive coordinator in 2021. Brady then worked his way up into an offensive coordinator role, replacing Ken Dorsey upon his firing.
Since his 2019 season as LSU’s passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach in their undefeated season, Brady had long been seen as a rising star in the coaching ranks. The 36-year-old has interviewed for head coaching jobs in the past, and he sees his opportunity with the team he already works for.
PFSN evaluates and grades the Bills’ decision to hire Brady as their new head coach.
Grading the Joe Brady Hire
In a vacuum, the thought of hiring Joe Brady as an NFL head coach is a great one. He’s been incredibly effective leading the Bills’ offense the last few years, and he’s a young offensive mind with a strong track record of success on that side of the ball.
If it wasn’t going to be in Buffalo, Brady was going to end up getting an HC gig somewhere eventually. Keeping him around gives them a high-upside option at head coach and maintains some continuity on offense.
That said, continuity feels like the exact thing the Bills decided against by firing McDermott. They’ve made the playoffs in each of the last seven seasons, and they had won the AFC East five consecutive times before 2025. The problem was that McDermott couldn’t lead them to a Super Bowl with an MVP QB in Josh Allen, and that’s why he got fired.
Hiring from within doesn’t provide any sort of outside spark for the Buffalo organization. Brady being their head coach gives them the exact stability they’ve been looking to break. Unless he has radically different ideas about how to lead a team, it’s tough to imagine things will be much different.
Internal promotions to head coach have happened a few times in recent years, including current coaches as Todd Bowles and Brian Schottenheimer. However, never in the 21st century has an internally promoted head coach led their team to a Super Bowl victory. That’s a steep bar Brady will have to climb.
In all, Brady definitely deserves to be an NFL head coach somewhere. As far as landing spots go from his point of view, staying in Buffalo, having personnel and scheme familiarity, and continuing to work with Allen at QB are all massive pluses. I’m just not sure it’s the move the Bills needed to make this time around.
