Count me among those excited about Joe Brady’s promotion to head coach of the Buffalo Bills. Still, like many in Bills Mafia, there’s plenty of room for concern.
When Terry Pegula made the decision to move on from Sean McDermott after nine seasons, it was justified. Watching Sean McDermott get stonewalled in the postseason year after year, and usually because of his defenses, Bills fans could see their space in the NFL’s version of purgatory taking shape. Good enough to get to the dance, but not good enough to be the last ones dancing.
But that doesn’t discredit the gamble Pegula is making in 2026. Because if it doesn’t work out, Bills fans will recognize where it all went wrong.
Terry Pegula's enormous risk is hiding beneath the Bills' excitement for Joe Brady era
By many accounts, and with recent developments across the league taken into consideration, where teams didn’t keep their fast-rising coach in the building, the Bills made the right move by promoting Brady. But there is a natural danger in hiring a 36-year-old, first-time head coach. There’s always danger when you make a change at head coach.
But along with that danger is the reality that Buffalo moved on from arguably the second-best coach in franchise history. Marv Levy’s four-straight trips to the Super Bowl probably would have always allowed for there to be a discussion between him and McDermott, even if McDermott could have gotten over the hump in the next few years at least once.
Still, McDermott pulled the Bills out of a 17-year playoff drought and returned the franchise to contender status for the better part of a decade. Josh Allen and even Brady played a huge factor in that. But the overall body of success shouldn’t be discredited from McDermott because of who he had at his disposal. After all, he broke that playoff drought before he had Allen.
The Bills are the winningest franchise over the past six seasons. That’s in jeopardy with a first-time head coach. The Bills have reached at least the Divisional Round in each of the past six seasons. That’s also in jeopardy. Of course, Allen, especially with Brady calling the plays, balances the scales.
Point toward the success Allen has had with Brady, and you’ll find exactly why I’m personally excited about what the future could hold for these Bills. But there’s no denying that Brady is under a tremendous amount of pressure to not only keep a good thing going, but to deliver in a way that McDermott couldn’t.
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If Brady can’t do that, if it’s anything between more of the same or worse, then the prime of Josh Allen will have been completely wasted, and he’ll teeter closer and closer to Dan Marino comparisons instead of John Elway. Pegula will have been proven wrong about McDermott and Brandon Beane, who shares the same pressures as Brady.
Since Pegula took ownership of the Bills in 2014, he’s overseen the revival of the franchise with the hiring of McDermott and the drafting of Allen. But his public comments, and the rashness that his decisions have displayed, understandably, have kept Bills Mafia’s faith in him tempered. If, in a few years’ time, it’s proven on the field that Pegula was wrong to fire McDermott when he did, all the Mafia will be able to do is look back at January 2025 with total regret.