NFL Coaching News: Bills Are Hiring Joe Brady as Head Coach

• The Buffalo Bills are hiring Joe Brady as their new head coach
• The haphazard search and odd array of names make it look like the Bills were not ready to look for a new coach
• After a stunning interview with Philip Rivers and other inexperienced or uninspiring names popped up, the Bills took the safe route with Brady
• Is it the right move?

Next Year’s Super Bowl Favorites Are…the Bills!

Despite the apparent disarray and that they lost in the playoffs (again), the Bills are still the current favorites to win Super Bowl LXI, just over a year away, when they will have a new head coach, Joe Brady.

Oddsmakers still believe in Josh Allen and maybe thought they were never going to get over the hump with Sean McDermott, so anyone they hired to replace him would be an appealing option.

Did the Bills Have a Plan When They Fired McDermott?

Based on how scattershot the Bills’ head coaching search has been, it appears as if owner Terry Pegula and GM Brandon Beane agreed that McDermott would be replaced if their team didn’t go to the Super Bowl this season…but that it wouldn’t matter because they figured they were going to go to the Super Bowl.

Spoiler alert: They did not go to the Super Bowl.

Pegula and Beane were defensive, to put it mildly, in their press conference. They did not throw McDermott under the bus. They tied him and his coaching staff to the back of the bus and drove around with them for a while. Then they ran them over a few times.

Blaming the coaching staff for drafting Keon Coleman and then hiring Joe Brady, who was on that coaching staff in a pretty important role as the offensive coordinator, sounds odd as a standalone issue. But when looking at the overall tone of the Bills from firing McDermott to interviewing Rivers and considering Giants castoff Brian Daboll, it kinda makes sense in a nonsensical way.

This chaos differs from the blindsided undertone of the Steelers’ head coaching search, which ended with a sharp deviation from organizational history by hiring qualified retread Mike McCarthy.

Pittsburgh clearly did not think Mike Tomlin was going anywhere and they had no plans to fire him. Regardless of opinion on the Steelers’ decision to get away from their history of hiring a young, defensive assistant with the intention of having them coach the team for the next 15 years, at least they hired someone who has a good track record and a Super Bowl title on his resume.

McCarthy is not going to embarrass the team if they give him players he can win with.

The Ravens hired Jesse Minter. Minter has ties to the team and to the Harbaughs. He served as an assistant for both John Harbaugh and Jim Harbaugh. This gives credence to owner Steve Bisciotti’s implied justification that he thought it was time for a change for John Harbaugh and the Ravens. They’re sticking to the template and not making a dramatic change other than a new person who knows how things are done in Baltimore.

The Bills fired McDermott. It was a conscious and likely reactive choice in the aftermath of another playoff loss.

Whether the decision was justified or not is irrelevant. If this was even in their minds, they needed to have a list of names to replace him. Judging by this search, they did not.

The Bills Coaching Candidates

The Philip Rivers interview was a stunner. But when looking at the other listed candidates, it’s really not much more absurd to think Rivers might be a better choice than Brian Daboll.

But he pulled himself from consideration.

In addition to Rivers and Brady, they considered the following names:

Grant Udinski

It takes work to find a candidate about whom the response is, “Brian Daboll is probably the safer choice.” But that’s what’s happening with the 30-year-old Udinski.

Udinski has one year as a coordinator with the Jaguars. Before that, he spent three years with the Vikings working under Kevin O’Connell as the assistant OC and assistant QB coach.

The Jags gave him a raise after he pulled himself from consideration for the Browns’ head coaching position, but he was still after the job in Buffalo.

This would actually have been the type of hire the Steelers might have made in the past. For a veteran team with a superstar QB, it’s a huge gamble.

Brian Daboll

Allen has a good relationship with Daboll. Despite the way Daboll’s tenure ended with the Giants, the environment was so dysfunctional that he only warrants a portion of the blame. He wouldn’t be the first coach to get a second chance when detractors were giving the side-eye at the decision. If they think the team needs a different voice with an offensive mindset, then maybe it could’ve been a good thing.

They’re better off with Brady.

Klint Kubiak

Kubiak was at a disadvantage from the jump. He has something of an important assignment over the next two weeks as the NFC champion Seahawks’ offensive coordinator.

Based on arcane NFL rules prohibiting a first interview during the run-up to the Super Bowl, the Bills would have needed to interview him earlier. And they could not have talked to him earlier because they hadn’t yet fired McDermott.

It hinders the more successful coaches in favor of those who are available because their teams lost in the playoffs or didn’t make the playoffs at all.

He has a good pedigree as Gary Kubiak’s son and he worked under Kyle Shanahan. Presumably, he would be agreeable to Allen. He might have been the guy if the Bills were willing to wait. Clearly, based on hiring Brady, they were not.

Davis Webb

Webb’s star is rising as the Broncos QB coach/pass game coordinator under Sean Payton. He was with the Bills on their practice squad and as their third stringer behind Allen and Mitch Trubisky for a few games.

He’s probably better off with a team that is in full rebuild than being dropped into Buffalo, suddenly going from an extra guy on their roster a few years ago to giving Allen orders.

So That Adds Up To the Safety of the Bills Hiring Joe Brady

Brady is the safest choice because it lets the Bills have continuity for a very good offense. Allen is the key to the franchise and it behooves them to keep him happy. Perhaps he was less than thrilled about McDermott being fired and was reticent about a new system and dealing with an entirely new coaching staff.

In that context, Daboll would have been acceptable, but that’s a tough sell for Bills fans after how Daboll’s time with the Giants ended with him seeming overwhelmed and relieved that he got axed.

So it’s Brady. No matter who they hired, they’re reaching put up or shut up time as an organization. Brady has been handed a high-end car. The owner and GM shifted blame to McDermott.

Odds for the Bills’ 2026 win total will be coming up soon.

So will they be better? Worse? Or, in what might be a bigger disaster, will they just stay where they are, make the playoffs, be a Super Bowl favorite, and lose again?

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