How Joe Brady's winding journey has the Bills -- and the coach himself -- on the verge of greatness

The NFL's next great head coach is a Sean Payton disciple who not only was part of the brain trust that led Joe Burrow to a national championship at LSU but also coordinated Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills to two-straight competitive playoff runs and was effectively a play away from at least one Super Bowl berth.

There isn't an NFL owner who wouldn't want a guy with that type of resume.

But Joe Brady isn't spamming PowerPoint presentations to billionaires. The 35-year-old from Pembroke Pines, Fla., isn't running up to every microphone he sees to crow over his accomplishments. If anything, he's obsessing over how his last two seasons ended -- and how he'll change things the next time he's in a big spot in the playoffs. 

Brady's had interviews to become a head coach. How did he prepare? What did he do?

"Nothing."

Nothing?!

"Here's the reality: We were getting ready to play a playoff game, so last thing I'm going to do is spend any time outside of getting ready for that game," Brady told CBS Sports. "So I don't do a thing about it, don't think about it when we're playing a game. We finish practice, I go in the interview, say whatever, they ask the questions, I answer 'em, and then I lock back in. It'd be unfair to my guys if I'm spending time thinking about the interview. And, it allowed me to just be myself."

There are two things you'd learn about Brady if you spent time with him: He's never fake, and he deeply values the relationships he's built, both in the league and out of it.

On a warm mid-August day in Chicago, Brady hustles all over the field during a practice against the Chicago Bears. You can't miss him -- he's the one running around from a huddle to a receiver to a couple of offensive linemen then back to the huddle to a position group then to an assistant coach and back to the huddle. He gets his steps in.

Then after practice, one in which Allen wasn't particularly sharp in, Brady is all smiles. He reunites with receiver D.J. Moore, who he coached while with the Panthers, and plays with his daughter. Then he meets up with the family of D.J. Mangas, his current offensive quality control coach and old friend who he coached alongside at William & Mary. He signs autographs for kids. Never once did the din of an uncharacteristic showing by his quarterback impact Brady's emotion. Then again, it was a practice, not a game.

This is just how Brady is, and how he prefers to be seen. By fans, by prospective owners, by anyone. What you see is what you get. He doesn't like talking about himself and doesn't really care about much about anything except football, including his players, and his soon-to-be family of four.

"I have a hard time getting away from ball," Brady admits. "I try to do my best (to be present) when I'm home. Am I ever fully away? Maybe not, but I want to make sure I'm present as a husband and a father."

Brady was a wide receiver at Everglades High School in Miramar, Fla., about a 20-minute drive from Hard Rock Stadium in suburban Miami. He was named to All-Broward teams by the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald and earned a scholarship to play at Air Force. After a year, he transferred to William & Mary, where he not only finished his playing days but also started his coaching career under long-time Tribe football coach Jimmye Laycock.

His first big break came when he went to work under then-offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead at Penn State in 2015. After two years there he landed with the Saints and got his "doctorate" in football under then-head coach Sean Payton, whom Brady credits more than anyone for how he shaped his philosophy and coaching style.

"Just sitting in and bringing zero value," Brady said of himself with the Saints, "(I saw) how one of the game's greatest minds kind of thinks and organizes his thoughts and seeing it come to life. That, to me, was so important for my career, my development."

In a video produced by the Bills, Brady went into detail on one example of how Payton implemented players against a given matchup.

"I would know that we would motion and shift and do this to get Mike Thomas matched up on this guy, and man, we get to the game, boom boom boom, here's Mike Thomas matched up against that guy," Brady said. "(Payton) just taught me so much that when we look at football it's not as black and white, it's not just what coverages do you want to attack, it's like, 'Who in the coverage do we want to attack?' with 'Who's our strengths?' and let's try to find their weakness and attack that.

"I wouldn't be sitting here without Sean Payton."

After his stint with the Saints, Brady joined LSU and in 2019 had a hand in winning the National Championship. Yes, that LSU team with Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Lloyd Cushenberry and so many others. Quickly after, Brady got the chance to call plays for the Carolina Panthers in 2020.

That was the COVID-19 year; everything was really different for everyone, but especially challenging for a first-time NFL playcaller joining a first-time NFL head coach on a team recently purchased by a demanding owner. It didn't help that the team moved on from Cam Newton in the spring and put the franchise in the hands of Teddy Bridgewater, or that Brady couldn't really connect with Bridgewater -- or anyone -- until training camp because of Covid restrictions. The year was a learning experience, but an ugly one as Carolina went 5-11.

The next season the Panthers began the year 3-0 while in the trusted hands of Sam Darnold. Things seemed to be looking up, but then the Panthers lost seven of their next nine games, Darnold was benched during the skid and ultimately Brady paid the price for the lack of wins and was fired in-season.

Brady said he didn't sulk or blame anyone other than himself for his failures in Carolina. But he didn't lie on the mat very long after getting fired, either. He wanted to find his "blind spots."

"I got fired, what was it, like Week 12 of a season, right? So there's no jobs you can get right then," Brady explained. "It's different from when you get fired at the end of the season. So that biggest thing was like not sitting there and saying, 'Hey, well, we weren't successful as an offense because of this or because of that.' It was like, 'If I got an opportunity again, what could I do differently? How was my play calling? How was the system? Did I put players in position to have success?'

"And so I was really trying to look at it from my own perspective with a red pen and not just trying to put blame on anybody else. That helped me when that opportunity came again."

One thing Brady may have taken a red Sharpie to was throwing downfield as much as he did. Over 28 games with the Panthers, Brady dialed up a pass play 58.2% of the time, though that was more of a byproduct of not playing with Christian McCaffrey much in 2020 or 2021. The success rate of those downfield plays was 40.5%, tied for 10th-worst in the league during that span. Only six touchdowns were scored on those plays.

"I knew, whenever my time was going to come, I believed it was going to come at some point, I was going to be ready for it," Brady said.

Fast forward to 2022. Brady was hired by Sean McDermott to be the Bills quarterbacks coach. He'd work hand-in-hand with Josh Allen under the guidance of offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, right in the thick of Buffalo's window for a Super Bowl.

Dorsey struggled to find ways to score after a hot start in 2023. The Bills were 5-5 after a Week 10 loss to -- who else? -- Sean Payton's Broncos. So the Bills pulled a Panthers and made Dorsey the fall guy, and it was Brady who got promoted to interim coordinator in-season.

And he didn't flinch. Immediately, the Bills were more run-focused, a curious change-up given their superhero quarterback. After beginning the year with a 58.8% pass rate, Brady had Buffalo running at a 51.8% clip from Week 11 on. They lost one game -- an overtime thriller against the Eagles -- and made the playoffs as AFC East champions.

Then came 2024. After a full offseason as the permanent offensive coordinator, Brady again tried to keep things balanced and wound up calling passes on 52.1% of his snaps. Except this time, his quarterback attacked and succeeded -- 24.8% of the Bills' pass attempts went 15 or more air yards, and their success rate was a solid 48%. They averaged 60.3 plays per game and scored the second-most points at 502. The 2024 Bills were one of only eight teams to have a positive EPA on their run plays and their pass plays. He even hung 31 points on Payton's Broncos in the first round of the playoffs.

But 2023 and 2024 ended the same way: heart-breaking defeat. In the playoffs. By one score. To the Chiefs.

Sunday, January 21, 2024: The Bills were up 24-20 going into the fourth quarter at home against the Chiefs in the divisional round. The Chiefs scored early in the fourth quarter to take the lead, 27-24. The Bills went three-and-out, then got the ball back on a Chiefs fumble but went three-and-out again. Finally, with 8:23 left in the game the Bills went on a slow, steady 15-play drive that had a few missed opportunities, including a painful incompletion to Khalil Shakir that would've been a touchdown if Shakir hadn't slowed his feet on his route. Allen was 6 of 11 for 42 yards, and Tyler Bass missed a game-tying field goal. Game over.

Sunday, January 26, 2025: In a shootout at Arrowhead Stadium, the Bills had done the unthinkable and held Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs to a field goal, giving them a 32-29 lead with 3:33 left. A Josh Allen scramble gave the Bills new life near midfield with the clock inside of 2:30. Then an option route by Shakir wasn't read correctly by Allen for an incompletion, a short middle-field throw was sniffed out and knocked down, and a Cover-0 blitz was read perfectly by Allen with a built-in solution -- a screen to Amari Cooper -- getting the Bills 5 yards. On fourth-and-5, Brady called a play that had actually worked against the Chiefs on a fourth-down play last year that sent Shakir in motion pre-snap and on a return route post-snap, but Allen was pressured and had to heave it where Dalton Kincaid was, and Kincaid couldn't fully adjust to bring in the pass. Incomplete. Game over.

Brady still takes the blame for both losses to this day. That's his style. The execution of the plays in both games were debated for months in Buffalo, but what wasn't up for debate was Brady's part in the process. In both games, Brady dialed up a series of plays to help the Bills win, first by killing the clock on a long drive in the 2023 playoffs, and again with well-designed plays meant to have viable second-read targets for Allen in the event the Chiefs blitzed. Buffalo was in position to win both games. Brady deserves credit for that. 

"At the end of the day we've had the ball with the opportunity to go score to win the football game the last two years and we didn't get it done," Brady told WGR 500 this summer. "... I don't want our guys thinking, 'Hey, when we get in these critical moments I have to do something extraordinary.' Sometimes just doing our job and just executing and everything that we've done at training camp is in those moments. We don't have to change who we are. Some people say it's just a couple of plays, well it could be some of these plays right now we're doing in training camp that's going to make the difference. I know that sounds crazy, but in those moments sometimes it's like, 'Hey, can we do the simple [things] better in the most critical moments? Is our detail and execution where they need to be?' That's something I kind of stress -- if the guys feel like in those moments that I have to make the play, that's usually when bad things happen."

The 2025 Bills have the same lofty expectations. Brady knows he has to be part of the reason why the Bills get over the hump this year.

Helping his cause is an offensive line returning all five starters, something not even the champion Eagles can say. Buffalo's line has earned a top-five grade from Pro Football Focus in run blocking and pass blocking in each of its past three seasons, literally since O-line coach Aaron Kromer arrived.

Fourth-year running back James Cook signing a new extension and not missing too much of training camp also is a huge plus. In the 28 games including the playoffs since Brady took over the playcalling duties, Cook has averaged 17.1 touches per game despite averaging 48.4% of the snaps played for 89.3 total yards per game and an incredible 25 total touchdowns. That's a tremendous example of the efficiency Brady strives for. In 10 games under Dorsey in 2023, Cook averaged 14.4 touches per game, played 56.1% of the snaps and averaged 83.7 total yards with two total touchdowns. 

"We know we're way better with Jimbo on the field," Brady said. "I'm glad he's gonna be here for the next few years."

Prisco's Week 1 NFL picks: Jets spoil Aaron Rodgers' debut with Steelers, Bills beat Ravens

Pete Prisco

Second-year receiver Keon Coleman has looked much better than he did as a rookie -- Brady and other teammates including Allen have raved about him, with Allen even telling SiriusXM NFL Radio that Coleman reminded Brady of Michael Thomas, a curious comparison given Brady's example of using Thomas to describe how Payton designed game plans. He figures to spearhead an improved receiving corps with Josh Palmer adding depth to the receiving corps, slot maven Shakir recovered from a high-ankle sprain and both tight ends Kincaid and Dawson Knox healthy and ready to contribute.

And naturally, Allen is the one who makes everything work for the Bills. You already know what he's capable of, but he's quick to give Brady credit for added improvements in his career.

"The juice and energy that he brings, the concepts that he puts in, everything kind of works with each other," Allen told CBS Sports.

It's exactly the set-up any playcaller would want. Mostly the same personnel, new additions to the playbook and great chemistry throughout the team. In fact, one thing that the next team Brady coaches will have is a locker room filled with camaraderie and the kind of selfless team spirit that keeps players from pointing at each other or getting too down with themselves. Nearly every time the Bills scored in practice at Chicago, they celebrated with each other. All eleven.

"We want to celebrate each other's success. That's really encouraged. We talk about it, we preach it," Brady said.

"The play doesn't care who makes it."

It feels inevitable that the Bills will be back in a win-or-die game again, probably against the Chiefs, and it'll come down to how the Bills play on one late fourth-quarter drive. When Brady dials up the right play and Allen makes it happen, it'll be the final word on Brady's ability and the last step in his journey -- whether he admits to thinking about it or not -- toward becoming an NFL head coach.