Updated Jan. 27, 2026, 7:32 p.m. ET
The Buffalo Bills found their next coach, in-house.
The Bills have tabbed Joe Brady as the man for the job. A familiar name, Brady has been in Buffalo since 2022.
Brady will have some big shoes to fill in accepting the position. He replaces Sean McDermott, who was fired in a surprise move by the team last week.
With that, here are 10 things to know about the next Bills’ head coach:
His Buffalo beginnings
Brady is an internal promotion for the Bills. He has spent plenty of years in Buffalo already.
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Brady was originally hired as the team’s quarterbacks quarterbacks coach and replaced Ken Dorsey as offensive in an interim basis in 2023. Ahead of the 2024 season, Brady took on the full-time OC position for the last two years.
Young
Brady is not the youngest head coach ever hired (Sean McVay-30), but that doesn’t mean he is not young.While other teams around the NFL are still lookin to hire head coaches, Brady is currently set to be the youngest head coach in the league in 2026.
Brady will turn 37 in September.
A long-time touted coach prospect
Brady ended up in Buffalo because he was removed from a job elsewhere. We’ll get to that, but prior, he was a very touted coaching prospect.
Before to his last stop with the Carolina Panthers, Brady was the passing game coordinator at LSU. His work there made him a very coveted person in the football world for a time, which is how he ended up with the Panthers.
Rough OC patch in Carolina
As referenced, Brady was ousted with the Panthers just short of two seasons there. What happened? Simply put, things just weren’t going very good. It’s not all on Brady, but the results did not come and he was a scapegoat on Matt Rhule’s coaching staf..
Carolina ranked 21st in yards per game and 24th in points per game under Brady in his first season on the headset. Through his 12 games in 2021, they sat 28th in yards (308.7) and 23rd in points (19.7)
Recent numbers for Bills offense
Speaking of numbers, here’s where Brady’s offenses with the Bills have ranked the past three years:
2023
Rush: 130.1 (7th). Pass: 244.4 (8th).Overall: 374.5 (4th).
2024
Rush: 131.2 (9th). Pass: 227.9 (9th).Overall: 359.1 (10th).
2025
Rush: 159.6 (1st). Pass: 216.6 (15th).Overall: 376.3 (4th).
Shares alma mater with McDermott
In his early football career, Brady took a similar path as Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott. He attended William & Mary college (2009-2012) and was a wide receiver there. McDermott played there (1994-1997) and was a safety.
After their playing careers, both took on jobs as grad assistants at the school. Aside from that, the two really weren’t too tightly connected before now.
Buffalo keeps a commodityÂ
While Brady sticks in Buffalo, he very likely could have ended up elsewhere ein the NFL as a head coach or offensive coordinator.
Multiple teams interviewed Brady for their open head coach position and those interviews are often looked back on when a club is later searching for an offensive coordinator.
Several teams brought in Brady to chat about their head-coach gig, of those, the Baltimore Ravens and Las Vegas Raiders even interviewed him for a second time.
His GOAT? Drew Brees
You might have heard of Tom Brady, he’s some quarterback who retired this week. However, he is not Brady’s “GOAT” despite them sharing a surname. Rather, it’s someone who hung ’em up a year earlier in Drew Brees.
“He’s the best quarterback of all-time and he’s watching what we’re doing,” Brady said via the Daily Advertiser while at LSU.
Well– Brady might be a bit biased. He worked with the Saints in an assistant role prior to his time at LSU… but he still picked Brees.
Likes ‘The Office’
Onto some personal touches, Brady is a big fan of at least one very popular sitcom: “The Office.”
After the news of Brady being hired by the Bills, a few mentions of the coach talking about the show during his time in Carolina surfaced:
Baseball guy
Pictured above with his former boss in Rhule, they’re sitting courtside at a Charlotte Hornets basketball game. Regardless of where, front row at a NBA matchup is pretty cool.
Brady may very well be a basketball fan, but it looks like he’s more of a baseball guy. He’s got a couple of photos on social media indicating that, including one in Boston Red Sox gear, but what really tips it off? Attending minor league and college level games. He’s got a few of those shots posted as well:
(Per the picture above, Brady is also a sunglasses inside guy as well.)