Sean Payton doesn’t have a lot of fans in Western New York after his Denver Broncos defeated the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs. Payton, however, is a fan of the Bills’ new head coach, Joe Brady.
Following the loss to Denver, Buffalo moved on from Sean McDermott and promoted Brady from offensive coordinator. Brady and Payton know one another well, with Brady being on Payton’s staff when he was the head coach of the New Orleans Saints.
Brady has spoken highly of Payton and even hired two of his assistants to take over as coordinators. Brady hired Pete Carmichael to be the offensive coordinator and Jim Leonhard as his defensive coordinator. Leonhard has been with Payton the past two seasons in Denver, while Carmichael began working with Payton in 2006 with the Saints.
There are no hard feelings from Payton about losing trusted staff members. Instead, he had nothing but praise for Brady when asked about his former assistant during the NFL Scouting Combine.
Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
“He, listen, he came, again, I can’t recall the first year. I just know he was part of that Rat Pack. Had a lot of good ideas, a lot of RPO ideas. He came from the college game, and we just hit on a bunch of, like, we were finding the right guys. And I think we’ve done the same in Denver with some of our young coaches. So, the clock… We can’t control,” Payton said.
“For Joe, it was that opportunity to go coach Burrow, Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase, and it was an unreal season. They won the national championship his first year. He ended up at Carolina, and I just saw him in the hallway coming here. I’m excited for him. He still seems super young. He’ll always seem that way to me, but he was fantastic. And he worked hard to get where he’s at.”
Broncos HC Sean Payton talks about Bills new head coach Joe Brady— Joe was on Sean’s staff in New Orleans pic.twitter.com/zWAMCv8m9X
— Josh Reed (@4JoshReed) February 24, 2026Joe Brady enters 2026 with plenty of pressure to succeed
Buffalo Bills coach Joe Brady speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Payton alluded to Brady’s time at LSU when he helped them win a National Championship as their Passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach in 2019. It was his first season with the Tigers, and the Bills are hoping for similar success right away this year.
McDermott was fired despite making the playoffs eight times in nine seasons, including a stretch of seven straigh appearances. The problem was that he couldn’t get the team into the Super Bowl, which means Brady takes the job with more pressure than any other first-year head coach.
Payton sounds like he believes Brady will be able to handle this just fine.
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