When the Buffalo Bills take the field for Week 1 of the 2026 season, they will be one of the ten teams that will be led by a new head coach. Their situation, however, is unique. Joe Brady is a first-time head coach and he takes over a win-now team that has been knocking on the Super Bowl door for many years now.
At the same time, it’s not like Brady is new to Buffalo. He has been in the building since 2022 when he was hired as the quarterbacks coach, and then eventually became the offensive coordinator. He has worked closely with Josh Allen for years, and he will continue to call the plays to keep the continuity on offense.
With the success that Brady has had with the offense, with the limited support for Josh Allen in the wide receiver room, there shouldn’t be too much worry about how that unit will look, even with Pete Carmichael Jr. now in the mix. In addition, Brady made a great hire in Jim Leonhard as the new defensive coordinator to fix the team’s biggest problem.
While all eyes will be on what this new regime will do in their first year, Bradley Locker from Pro Football Focus (PFF) pointed out a huge issue that the Bills can’t ignore anymore with this new coaching staff.
Joe Brady, coaching staff must eliminate big Bills problem in 2026
Locker recently wrote about the NFL’s least and most penalized teams since the 2021 season, and according to Locker, the Bills have the 4th most penalties in the league with 674 from 2021-2025. The three teams ahead of them are the Texans (676), Titans (677), and Cowboys (756). The Chiefs (667) were behind the Bills at No. 5.
"Seeing the Bills and Chiefs— two of the more successful and winning teams over the past half-decade — on this list certainly throws cold water on the fact that good squads need to avoid penalties." said Locker.
Then Locker pointed out that when it came to the defensive side of the ball, the Bills had one of the highest defensive penalty rates at 4.4%. In addition, the Bills have the 4th most penalties on 3rd/4th down with 255 during this time span.
With the Bills going into the first year of the Joe Brady era, there are already a ton of expectations on how far this team should go. However, Brady inherits a massive problem that he and his coaching staff are going to have to fix.
In the end, these numbers show that Buffalo played very undisciplined football in crucial situations. Penalties can be the reason why a team wins or loses the game, and we have seen the Bills on the losing end too many times. It’s time for Brady and his staff to fix it now.
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