‘I just want football players that love ball’

Re-discovering a love for defense | How Brady is diving back into defensive meetings

As the Bills switch to a new defensive scheme and Brady swaps out his offensive coordinator hat for his head coaching hat, Buffalo’s new head coach wants to make sure he’s all-in on having a defensive presence. Brady is doing that by being in defensive meetings and having plenty of conversations with new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard.

“I’ve never sat in the defensive meetings as much as I am right now,” Brady shared. “I want to be able to speak the language to our guys. I want to be able to coach them and talk to them, and not just, when games on the line. If Jim’s calling the defense, I want at least know what he’s calling.”

The last time Brady sat in on defensive meetings of this magnitude was back in 2013-14 when he was the linebackers coach for William & Mary. He knows committing the time to the defense will make him a more well-rounded coach and will be another way he can make deeper connections with players.

It’s also helping Brady be a better play-caller.

“It’s cool that the collaboration because I’m getting the feel of also, it’s helping me as an offense play caller too,” Brady said. “I’ve purposely stayed out the offensive meetings right now so they can be critical of the room that we need for growth … So, I’ve been sitting in the defensive meetings really trying to get a feel of how we do things, what puts them in stress because it helps me. Because a lot of people are going to be studying probably a lot of the top defenses, and those are the elements that we’re going to do.”

In collaborating with Leonhard and dreaming up what Buffalo’s defense will look like, Leonhard believes there are some pretty exciting pieces already in Buffalo.

“There are a lot of pieces on our team that are exciting to him,” Brady said. “… There are some guys that might have been used in some roles in the past that we think they can do some other things, but a lot of it is projections right now. You got to go do it and so that’s where we’re kind of at right now is figuring out what some of the base defense kind of looks like and moving some of the guys in some of those different roles and skill sets. That’s what’s also exciting.”