Joe Brady is in charge, but the Buffalo Bills’ success might just depend on the coordinators he surrounds himself with.
Hiring the head coach of a football team is only part of the story. Sometimes, it's not even the most important part. If Joe Brady is going to be the guy for the Buffalo Bills, then the real question becomes what his staff looks like and who he surrounds himself with.
Sundays are chaotic. You have fifteen seconds to get a play in. Communication cuts off. Decisions pile up. And that is where trust, delegation, and structure start to matter more than raw football knowledge.
Sean McDermott never seemed to fully trust his coordinators, and it showed. When he pulled defensive play calling back to himself, the defense improved. But other parts of the operation suffered. That's the tradeoff. You cannot do everything, and a head coach who tries usually pays for it somewhere else.
We already know Brady plans to keep calling plays. That makes the offensive coordinator hire fascinating. One early idea was Brady as head coach with Davis Webb stepping into the role. The relationship with Josh Allen is real. Everyone knows they are close, and Webb has earned praise for his work with quarterbacks. The Bills even interviewed him, which felt like a temperature check.
Then Denver fired Joe Lombardi, and suddenly the timing felt strange. That move almost felt like a message to Webb. Stay put and take a promotion. And if that's the case, Buffalo may have already missed its window.
Another name in the mix is Nate Scheelhaase, who was on Cleveland’s radar for a head coaching job. He is young and ambitious with the upside being obvious. The downside is experience, or lack of it.
That's where the veteran option comes in. Pete Carmichael makes sense because of his history with Brady in New Orleans. If you're going to bring in an older coach, trust matters. The offensive coordinator needs to be an extension of Brady, not someone who may have to learn his tendencies on the fly. This role is not about ego. It's about helping Brady manage the operation so he can still be an effective play caller.
Defensively is where this conversation really heats up.
That side of the ball has let the Bills down too often, especially in the biggest moments. The name gaining the most traction is Jim Leonhard. He's a coach with an aggressive mindset whose defenses attack instead of sitting back in soft zone and hoping for mistakes. That alone makes him appealing.
The NFL has changed. Quarterbacks are too good to let them stand still and read defenses. You have to generate pressure; you have to be creative. Brian Flores does it every week in Minnesota, and it works. Passive defenses get diced up, especially in January.
If it is not Leonhard, there are other strong options. Anthony Weaver is intriguing despite a rough year in Miami while Raheem Morris might be the safest bet of all. A coach you can trust to run the defense like his own team. Someone Brady does not need to micromanage.
And that last part matters.
You don't want a first-time head coach, a first-time offensive coordinator, and a first-time defensive coordinator all learning on the job at the same time. If there is going to be experience somewhere, defense feels like the place it is needed most.
This staff will define Brady’s tenure. Maybe even more than Brady himself.