The Buffalo Bills didn't have to look far to find their replacement for head coach Sean McDermott, as they agreed to a five-year contract with offensive coordinator Joe Brady to serve as the team's next head coach.
The decision may end up being the right one from a process point of view, but the decisions the Blls made to get this point are assuredly going to paint this organization in a negative light and get the regime change started off on a bad foot.
Firing McDermott is one thing, but between retaining GM Brandon Beane, embarrassing everyone with an absolutely disastrous post-season press conference, and conducting one of the more uninspired coaching searches out there in this cycle, there are warning signs that suggest what Buffalo has done in the offseason could come back to bite them sooner than expected.
Brady has proven he can coordinate an offense and call a game, but their belief that Brady can manage a game better than McDermott instantly is a bet that may lead to Josh Allen going through even more of his prime without tasting a Super Bowl.
Bills' process for hiring Joe Brady has been a mess
The Bills have an MVP quarterback in Allen, a defense that has some standout players, and a manageable division. Despite that, the team was so starved for candidates that they even gave Philip Rivers a shot. Somehow, a premier job was made to look very unattractive.
Brady has tons of potential, and he will keep the offense that Allen has thrived in completely in place, but is a 36-year-old with no past experience the best candidate for this job, when a steady hand may be required? There's a good chance that swapping out names on the marquee may not impact wins and losses in the way Buffalo thinks it will.
It seems as though the higher-ups in Buffalo erroneously guessed they would both have more support from the fanbase for firing McDermott and a larger line of candidates lined up to take this opening. Instead, they had to promote a McDermott holdover and act like everything is sunshine and rainbows.
Winning covers up a lot in the NFL, and the combination of Allen and McDermott papered over some of the cracks in this organization. Brady winning could once again put these problems on the back burner, but the reputation of Buffalo as a unit has been taken down a peg by this saga.