After a disappointing loss on Monday night, the Bills made a change on the coaching staff, firing offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and replacing him with QB coach Joe Brady. After the start the Bills have had to this season it was clear that some change needed to be made, and the way they lost on Monday appeared to be the final straw.
Brady, who has been the QB coach here in Buffalo for the past two seasons, does have some play calling experience. He was the OC in Carolina under Matt Rhule, for the better part of two seasons. In Carolina, things did not exactly go well, as he was fired midway through his second season. But a lot of that was not all on him, as they had a revolving door of quarterbacks including, Sam Darnold, Cam Newton, and Teddy Bridgewater. In his one full season in Carolina he used a lot of motion on passing plays and did not call many runs out of the shotgun, two things that have been major points of contention in the current Bills offense. He also likes to get creative in the screen game, so we could see a lot more of James Cook used in the passing attack.
Prior to being the OC in Carolina he was the Passing Game Coordinator for possibly the greatest offense in NCAA Football history, the 2019 LSU Tigers. They set multiple offensive and passing records, on the way to an undefeated national championship season. He also won the Broyles Award that season, which goes to the nation’s top assistant coach. While he was not the OC of this team, it is clear his fingerprints were all over the offense and the play calling.
On paper, Brady is exactly the kind of OC that is taking the NFL by storm. He is young, only 34 years old, has creative motion based play calls, and even has play calling experience at the NFL level. He now, quite possibly, faces the biggest challenge of his career. Can he fix this struggling Bills offense? A team that on paper, should be at the top of the NFL standings, but finds themselves out of the playoff picture at 5-5. If he can he could secure himself a job for next year and make a lot of Bills fans very happy. Will this turn the season around or will the Bills continue to struggle and miss the playoffs and lose a year of Josh Allen’s prime? Only time will tell.