When Joe Brady served as LSU’s passing game coordinator for the 2019 college football season, he already had a little NFL experience on his resume. Brady played a pivotal role in guiding the Tigers’ offense, though, to a perfect 15-0 record and a College Football Playoff National Championship.
Brady, though, had higher aspirations for his coaching career. On Tuesday, it reached its peak.
Former LSU OC Joe Brady Becomes HC in NFL
Brady has been named as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills, with Bills owner Terry Pegula making the announcement. This will be Brady’s first foray into any head coaching position. NFL Network Insider Tom Pelissero had the news on Tuesday on Brady.
The Bills plan to hire Joe Brady as their head coach, sources tell The Insiders. pic.twitter.com/XOvr8imYJ8
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 27, 2026
“The Bills plan to hire Joe Brady as their head coach, sources tell The Insiders,” Pelissero wrote.
When Brady was at LSU, he had quarterback Joe Burrow dialed into the Tigers’ offensive schemes. Burrow threw for 4,715 yards and 48 touchdowns en route to winning the Heisman Trophy in 2019. LSU beat Georgia 37-10 to win the SEC Championship, then topped the Oklahoma Sooners 63-28 in a College Football Playoff semifinal game at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
In the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, LSU defeated the Clemson Tigers 42-25 as Burrow threw for 463 yards en route to a national title. So, Brady knows a thing or two about running an offense. He’s been the Bills’ offensive coordinator under the now-fired Sean McDermott for two seasons. Brady’s college coaching career, besides spending one season at LSU, includes two seasons as a linebackers coach at William & Mary and two seasons as a graduate assistant at Penn State.
In the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, Brady was an offensive assistant for the New Orleans Saints. Then, in 2019, he ran the Tigers’ offense under then-head coach Ed Orgeron. Brady returned to the NFL in 2020, where he spent two seasons as the Carolina Panthers’ offensive coordinator.
He joined the Bills in 2022 as quarterbacks coach under McDermott. Then, Brady became the interim offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2023. He took over full-time offensive coordinator duties in 2024 and stayed there through this season.
As a gauge of what types of metrics the Bills’ offense posted in the regular season, the PFSN NFL Offense Impact metrics show that the Buffalo offense had an impact score of 86.5 and graded out to a B. His time in the college ranks helped prepare Brady for this moment in his career.
