Joe Brady had been unemployed for two weeks in December 2021 when he turned on a television in his home to watch his former team, the Carolina Panthers, play the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium in Week 15.
Buffalo Bills Mandatory Mini Camp (copy)
Joe Brady joined the Buffalo Bills in 2022 as their quarterbacks coach. Now he is the offensive coordinator. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Brady could have felt bitter. He was fired as the Panthers’ offensive coordinator just 23 months after he was one of the play-callers for Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow in LSU’s national championship victory.
Carolina’s best player, Christian McCaffery, went on injured reserve in October and its starting quarterback, Sam Darnold, could not play through a shoulder injury. His replacement, Cam Newton, started a game three days after he signed a contract.
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But as Brady studied the Panthers and Bills from his couch on that December afternoon, he was singularly focused on identifying the lessons that he could take from the painful experience of losing a job for the first time in his coaching career.
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“What I’m most proud of is when I got let go, I didn’t place blame on anyone else,” he shared with The Buffalo News. “I had a job to do, and I didn’t do my job well enough. It allowed me to find my blind spots and look at everything with a red pen. I realized, ‘OK, when I get this opportunity again, whenever it may be, what would I do differently?’”
If anyone expected a different response, they don’t know Brady.
At each stop during his 16-year coaching journey, Brady impressed colleagues with his creative, analytical approach to game-planning and building an offense. Interviewing for NFL head-coaching jobs at 31 years old didn't change him. Brady kept the same tireless work ethic that fueled his meteoric rise from a linebackers coach at his alma mater to the architect of an offense that averaged 30.9 points per game.
The precision with which Bills quarterback Josh Allen ran the offense in 2024 has Buffalo labeled as one of several legitimate Super Bowl contenders entering their season-opening game Sunday night against the Baltimore Ravens and earned Brady the reputation as one of the NFL's bright young coaches.
Yet, over the past several months, he studied countless hours of video to pinpoint possible adjustments and wrinkles to add to his offense. Buffalo won a fifth straight AFC East title and matched the franchise record with 13 regular season wins before it reached the AFC championship game for the second time since 2020, but Brady and the Bills are aiming higher in 2025.
“I’m proud of him,” said Jimmye Laycock, formerly the longtime football coach at William & Mary, where Brady played wide receiver from 2009-12. “He knows what he wants, he’s confident in himself and he’ll keep working at it. Those are the same traits I saw when he was here and those same traits have manifested even further, on a higher level. He looks at setbacks as opportunities to improve.”
Getting started
At each of Joe Moorhead's stops since 2016, including a two-year stint as head coach at Mississippi State, he has posed the same question to his young offensive assistants: “Do you have the Joe Brady play sheet?”
The play sheet was created nine years ago when Brady was a graduate assistant under Moorhead at Penn State. The Nittany Lions’ offensive coordinator was preparing to review with Brady how he typically game plans for an opponent each week when the young coach surprised his boss with a stack of 8.5 x 11-inch papers.
Each game-planning sheet represented a different formation or situation and painted a picture of how the Nittany Lions’ next opponent may try to stop them. There was even space for Moorhead to jot down notes throughout the week.
“Every offensive coordinator needs a right-hand man that’s going to work with him in the offense from the second you step in the door to the second you leave,” Moorhead said in a recent phone interview. “He was there from the first step to the last step. He made an unbelievable impression on me. You never know for certain, but you always have a feeling when you encounter a great young coach who can go on to achieve great things in their career and, certainly, Joe was one of those guys for me.”
Day Twelve of Buffalo Bills Training Camp (copy)
Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady, left, played college football at William & Mary from 2009-12. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
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Five years earlier, Brady finally was in line to contribute on the field at William & Mary.
Coaches loved him. They’d never seen a receiver coach and assist teammates like Brady had since he arrived from the Air Force Academy. He knew the playbook as well as the coaches, but they also trusted him implicitly in situations where the game was on the line.
If the play required a receiver who could block, Brady was their choice. But he learned shortly into his senior season that he was unlikely to play as much as he wanted. A younger receiver was climbing the depth chart and earning more snaps. Brady enjoyed mentoring his teammates, though. There was a natural draw to the profession because his dad, Joe Sr., coached him as a kid. In three seasons, Brady caught three passes for 34 yards and didn't score a touchdown, but he found his calling.
“Once I got my start in coaching, I realized, ‘Man, it’s as close as I can get to playing,' but the people, the competitiveness, being able to see guys develop and achieve their dreams, it’s everything to me,” Brady said.
Brady helped the offensive coaches once his senior season ended and, a few months later, he was asked by William & Mary’s assistant head coach and defensive line coach, Ted Andrews, if he’d be interested in coaching linebackers. Laycock wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea. He preferred that former players go elsewhere to break into coaching because it’s so soon after they were friends and teammates with the student athletes they’d be leading.
In Laycock’s 38 years as coach at William & May, only one other player made the immediate jump to his staff: Sean McDermott. It took some convincing, but Laycock hired Brady in 2013.
“He had such a good work ethic that he picked it up really quickly, and he was a real asset to us,” said Scott Boone, then William & Mary’s defensive coordinator. “He was a football junkie and mature beyond his years. He was always picking your brain about this and that. It’s always helpful to have an other-side-of-the-ball perspective when you’re game planning. If we were looking at film, Joe could help us with what he thought the offense was thinking.”
Bills Blue and Red (copy)
Offensive coordinator Joe Brady was the passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach at LSU when the Tigers won the national championship for the 2019 season. Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
The scout team offense was coached as much by Brady as the linebackers because it was his job to teach them the concepts of William & Mary’s next opponent. Laycock, Boone and Andrews needed someone to get the players comfortable as soon as possible so they could simulate what the defense would face that week.
Brady’s understanding of an offense’s concepts proved invaluable when the staff watched film. He’d be the first in the building and the last to leave. Even as a young coach, Brady had an uncanny ability to anticipate his bosses’ needs and showed a willingness to do whatever possible to make their jobs easier.
Laycock didn’t expect anyone else to be in the office when he arrived early one day to host several recruits, but Brady was already vacuuming the floors.
“You couldn’t give Joe enough to do,” said Laycock. “He’d always come up with projects on his own. Early on, it was extremely evident that he had a great football mind. He was very mature and handled it perfectly. He never looked back after that.”
Creativity
The multi-tempo, record-setting spread offense Moorhead ran at Fordham enthralled Brady in 2016 as he studied the video of his new boss' scheme.
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It was unlike anything Brady had seen in the Big Ten. Moorhead combined pass schemes derived from a West Coast system with a run pass option-based rushing attack that took advantage of his quarterback’s athleticism. The plan was to run the same concepts at Penn State, where the Nittany Lions had a similar quarterback, Trace McSorley, and a remarkable young running back, Saquon Barkley.
“He was not afraid to try new things and experiment,” Brady said of Moorhead, who’s now the head coach at Akron. “You would think to yourself, ‘This isn’t going to work,’ but it would end up being one of our best plays. … He really started to shape my mindset of ‘Hey, just because this is how we’ve always done it where we’ve had this split or we run this route with this play, maybe there’s something else we can do with it.’ ”
With Moorhead calling the plays in 2016, Penn State set a program record for total yards (6,056) and passing yards (3,650) while tying the record for points scored (526) on its way to winning the Big Ten championship. The Nittany Lions scored 30 or more points 11 times and improved their scoring average by 14.4 points from the previous season.
Brady was planning to return to Penn State for a third season as a graduate assistant. He’s never been the type to look ahead or contemplate his next job. While coaching the Bills’ quarterbacks in 2022, he declined to interview for offensive coordinator vacancies during the playoffs.
A call from the New Orleans Saints in 2017 sent Brady on a path to eventually call plays for LSU and an NFL franchise. As an offensive assistant, he worked closely with coach Sean Payton, offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael and Super Bowl-winning quarterback Drew Brees.
“Joe was smart beyond his years,” said Curtis Johnson, then a senior offensive assistant with the Saints and currently coach of the UFL’s Houston Roughnecks. “He was similar to a young Sean Payton when I first met Sean. Joe made suggestions and did things that a 10-year veteran assistant wouldn’t be doing. You could tell he was a rising star. He was the one young guy I thought Sean always listened to and, when Joe spoke, everyone listened to him.”
It didn’t take Brady long to impress Payton and the other coaches with his knowledge of the offense. Brady wasn’t a young coach who acted like he knew everything. His questions were insightful and thought-provoking, often leading to analytical debates about how the Saints could stay ahead of every NFL team. And, in New Orleans, Brady met two ambitious football minds with whom he could learn: current Bills quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry and current Falcons quarterbacks coach D.J. Williams.
Payton’s willingness and eagerness to experiment showed Brady that the lessons he learned under Moorhead can be applied in the NFL. The concepts Payton used to win a Super Bowl became tenants in Brady’s philosophy and vision for how to create problems for a defense. The experience was a essentially his football “Ph.D.,” said Brady.
The foundation of the Bills’ offense was built by Brian Daboll, but Brady introduced some of the core principles that he learned in his previous stops. He's made changes along the way, based on his personnel and trends across the NFL, as well as the ways McDermott tries to stop opponents.
“You can see that Joey’s offense is based on what we did at Penn State, what he learned under coach Payton in New Orleans and what he did in his role at LSU,” said Moorhead. “He’s taken that foundation and adapted it as the game has progressed and defenses found ways to combat certain schemes. You always want to stay one step ahead on the chess board. I studied some of his stuff in the offseason and it’s another reminder that he’s a very creative mind.”
Problem-solving
Brady sprinted to the end zone to celebrate with one of his newest receivers, Joshua Palmer, after he caught a ball over a Bills cornerback in a one-on-one drill late in training camp at St. John Fisher University.
The Bills have learned since Brady took over as offensive coordinator in Week 11 of the 2023 season that he can be firm. He’s quick to point out a mistake and explain the necessary adjustment. But he also fosters the competitive, lighthearted environment created by his remarkable quarterback. Brady knows how to relate to players and get the most out of them, a skill that he showed as a young coach at William & Mary.
“He’s going to let you know that he cares about you, that you know he believes in you,” said wide receiver Khalil Shakir. "And when a coach tells you that plenty of times over and over and over again, as a player, you start to believe it and go out there and just excel.”
As soon as Brady took over the play-calling in 2023, he took pressure off Allen by prioritizing the run game. Buffalo won six of its last seven games and averaged 380.7 total yards. More pre-snap shifts and motions were used to create mismatches, particularly against man coverage.
Last season, the Bills averaged 359.1 total yards per game and they were third in EPA per play. Their 62 total touchdowns were tied for second-most in the NFL, and they became the first team in league history to have 30-plus receiving and 30-plus passing touchdowns in the same season. Buffalo scored 30-plus points 12 times during the regular season, as Allen threw 12 fewer interceptions than 2023 and James Cook tied for the league lead in rushing touchdowns.
Buffalo Bills OTA (copy) (copy)
Bills quarterback Josh Allen has 13 total touchdowns and no interceptions in five playoff games with Joe Brady as the team's offensive coordinator. Derek Gee, Buffalo News
The Bills had the fewest three-and-outs and their use of pre-snap motion increased by 13%. No team ran more plays with a sixth offensive lineman – nearly three times the league average – and it became one of their most effective personnel groupings.
“Joe was always willing to think outside the box,” said Boone, now a special teams analyst at Duke. “I saw some plays last year where he sent a guy in a zoom motion behind a running back, snapping back and threw the ball to him, because the defense was in man coverage and their guy was never going to get back in the same leverage. Little things like that are examples of what he learned while coaching defense with us. I’ve watched the development of Joe in terms of his creativity.”
Creativity was necessary this offseason as Brady studied ways for the Bills to remain unpredictable in 2025. He'll spot a motion or certain route while watching other teams, then make a few small tweaks to make it work within Buffalo’s framework and with its personnel. Brady pitches the idea to Allen and the rest of the offense before they try it in practice. The quarterback has the same willingness to experiment as Brady.
Each week, Allen and everyone on offense meet to discuss what they like in the game plan and which plays they’re not yet comfortable using. Brady has the final say, but he wants collaboration. This is Allen’s offense, Brady said, and the man behind center must be all-in on the plays that are called.
The NFL's 31 other teams have spent the past eight months studying the Bills' offense, and it's up to Brady to surprise them.
"Every project that I look at, there's something we can take from it," said Brady, who turns 36 this month. "And you have to make sure you don't have your offense become too much. I love the newness to it and our guys feel the same way. They understand that it's going to be different and that's going to help us improve because if we stay the same, we're not going to have the same success."
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