The Buffalo Bills ended their coaching search on Tuesday, promoting offensive coordinator Joe Brady to the head coach position. While in some ways the decision to keep Brady in the building makes the hire feel like an extension of the Sean McDermott era in Buffalo, change is still coming for the Bills this offseason, even if it may not be wholesale.
With that in mind, not everyone on the Bills’ roster is feeling the comfort of an in-house move at head coach. Brady will put his personal spin on the Bills in 2026 and beyond, having agreed to a five-year deal with the franchise.
In that respect, some members of the Bills organization will certainly benefit from Brady being the top man in charge of the locker room, but that favor certainly won’t extend to everyone.
Winners and losers from the Buffalo Bills' decision to hire Joe Brady as head coach
Winner: Josh Allen
Of course, quarterback Josh Allen is the biggest winner of all. Having participated in the interviewing process, Allen gets to keep the coach who has been by his side since 2022.
Keeping Brady in the building is understandably beneficial to Allen and the Bills’ offense, which led the league in rushing and was top-10 in passing touchdowns. Of course, Buffalo still needs to make significant changes on that side of the ball to give Allen more help, but the continuity is still there for the quarterback to pick up where he left off next season.
Still, Brady helped Allen nab his first MVP award in 2024 and called the plays that allowed him to put up arguably better stats in 2025 despite his offensive line taking a step back in pass protection and his wide receivers playing below the line of acceptability.
Loser: Keon Coleman
Second-year wideout Keon Coleman didn’t take Terry Pegula throwing him under the bus last week too seriously, so he probably isn’t sweating it too hard that his offensive coordinator is now his head coach. Still, without a significant change in his environment, Coleman’s future is still incredibly cloudy.
Coleman missed five games despite a healthy season, at first for disciplinary reasons and later for personnel decisions. That has to be corrected, but with Brady taking on a larger role and the functionality of the offense largely staying the same, it’s tough to see where Coleman gets his help in correcting the mistakes of a second-year player.
The Bills have to address the wide receiver room this offseason, and they can’t exactly bank on Coleman having a bounce-back year next season as they do so. We’ll see how the receiver room looks after the draft and free agency pass by, but for now, it’s not clear where Coleman fits into the organization’s plans.
Winner: James Cook
Just like with Josh Allen, James Cook knows his role in Buffalo will continue to be a prominent one, especially after taking the NFL rushing title in 2025, not that it was in question of course.
Still, Brady fed Cook down the stretch, and it led to some impressive performances for the fourth-year back out of Georgia while keeping the Bills’ offense balanced. Considering just how poor the receivers were for Buffalo last season, it’s a wonder where the team would be without an elite rushing attack powered by Cook.
But those worries are washed away, as Cook and Brady can get back in the lab this offseason to figure out ways to improve their methods of running the ball down the rest of the league’s throat.
Losers: Free Agent Veteran Defenders
Brandon Beane has his work cut out for him in crunching the numbers just to be able to make a move this offseason, but hiring Joe Brady as the head coach made some of that process a touch easier. Veteran defenders set to become free agents won’t have their connection to Sean McDermott to lean on in negotiations.
As such, the likes of Joey Bosa, DaQuan Jones, Larry Ogunjobi, Tre’Davious White and Shaq Thompson, among others, may have just seen the writing go up on the wall about their Bills futures. Of course, it’s certainly possible that some of these names will be offered a deal to return to the franchise, but with a new defensive mind set to take over, surely there will be more turnover than retention on the defensive side of the ball.
Loser: Brandon Beane
Brandon Beane signed off on the hire, so he’s not the first name you’d expect to be on the loser side of the aisle, but the reality is that Beane just put more pressure on himself by preserving some of the status quo.
Obviously, Beane isn’t going anywhere anytime soon after his latest promotion. And the Bills have to afford some patience with Brady anyway. After all, he’s a 36-year-old, first-time head coach.
But the entire conversation surrounding the roster talent and those who challenged its championship-readiness, Beane, with the backing of owner Terry Pegula, stood on the side of ‘what we have is enough’. He stuck by that by hiring an in-house candidate as head coach.
Now, either Beane has to concede that he was at least somewhat wrong and bring in some wide receivers so Brady’s offense works to the height of its potential, or continue preserving the status quo, which only pins the blame on him if it backfires again. It’s a lose-lose scenario for Beane from that perspective.
Either way, whether the power struggle was real or not, Beane won, and now the ball is in his court to deliver what the franchise felt McDermott was holding them back from. There will be no second chances if it doesn’t work out. Of course, if it does work out, Beane might just be the biggest winner of all in the end.