See?

See?!

Ah, I always love when a bit of raw honesty makes its way to the podium after a draft pick. Everyone who saw the Los Angeles Rams head coach after the team selected Ty Simpson 13th overall pick could tell he was not well.

For Simpson, it’s a best-case scenario.

What does this mean for the Rams? And Quarterback Hunting in general? The No. 1 storyline from the 2026 draft is the first topic discussed here on “Real Football” with my co-host, longtime NFL personnel man Jim Monos. We examine from all angles.

Taking everything into account, is it best to trade up or trade down? How should a general manager proceed in today’s game?

We take a close look at the Buffalo Bills’ draft selections, too. GM Brandon Beane did both with his first two choices: Clemson’s T.J. Parker and Ohio State’s Davison Igbinosun. Selections that further reflect the vision to attack post-McDermott. Monos spent time in the Bills front office and offers full analysis on the Bills’ picks after studying the film.

He also shares one wild tale from the Philadelphia Eagles war room that involves a certain “FredEx.” (Not everyone’s on-board with decisions made.)

Don’t look now, but the Cleveland Browns are quietly adding some talent.

Now, about that quarterback…

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We’ve been reporting on the Bills transition since the 2026 season ended. Links below if you missed anything.

Joe Brady two-parter:

• Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

• Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

The hiring:

‘He wants to win the whole damn thing:’ Inside the Buffalo Bills’ decision to hire Joe Brady as HC

The firing:

• Why was Sean McDermott Fired?

• ‘What is success?’ The truth hurts...

• Hunt for QB-HC harmony: Why Josh Allen is sitting in these meetings

Draft grades are here! Hoard supplies. Take shelter. Hug your loved ones. Barring an Amish-extreme media blackout, nobody is safe… and, oh no. What’s that lurking on Instagram? 2027 mocks have arrived to eat your brain cells.

Of course, it’s impossible to accurately assess how any of the 257 players selected over the course of 72 hours will perform with their new NFL teams.

Here’s what everyone should do, however.

Pull up the draft history of your favorite team on Pro Football Reference, look back five years and judge accordingly.

The assumption for the Buffalo Bills heading into the 2026 draft was that they’d prioritize defensive pieces for new coordinator Jim Leonhard — especially after shipping a second-round pick for veteran wide receiver DJ Moore. There’s a strong argument for acting exactly as Howie Roseman does in Philadelphia by trading up. To hell with future picks in the name of chasing a premier talent in the top 20. Instead, Brandon Beane traded down three times, back into the second to select Clemson edge rusher T.J. Parker and Ohio State cornerback Davison Igbinosun. Many constituents are not pleased.

Rather than draw blanket conclusions on these two prospects, let’s look back.

The Bills have been hammering defense for ages. Last season, they went D-D-D-D-D with their first five picks. Before that, they’ve been investing heavily into the defensive line.

Watching the voracious discourse melt down X brought back memories of our chat with Bills GM Brandon Beane exactly one year ago. When I brought up Philadelphia’s beatdown of Patrick Mahomes — the Chiefs QB didn’t cross midfield until his team was down 34-0 — Beane was very quick to point out that building a dangerous pass rush has always been a focus of his. He’s been investing both draft capital and free agency dollars in defensive line since Year 1. Elite quarterbacks can, in fact, bleed. To him, the carnage inside the Superdome was not revelatory. Nor was Tampa Bay chasing Mahomes around for 497 yards worth of scrambling before sacks and throws a few Super Bowls prior. He cited the Carolina Panthers teams past he witnessed up close and said he knew what needed to be done.

When asked what gives him confidence Sean McDermott and the Bills staff could use the new pieces on defense to get different results, he was matter of fact.

“Yeah, I mean that’s what we have to do,” the GM said. “Everyone’s on board and that’s how we’re attacking it.”

There were highs, lows, injuries and the same January bellyflop.

The Bills fired Sean McDermott.

Beane stayed.

Joe Brady was promoted to head coach.

This organization is basically plastering its belief in gigantic letters across new Highmark Stadium.

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They believe McDermott was the problem even more than anyone thinks. Specifically, in this case, his ability to coach defensive football. Agree. Disagree. For nearly a decade, a defensive coach was supplied resources on the defensive side of the ball and owner Terry Pegula expected more in the games that matter most. There was no daring leap up the board for an April splash, no Micah Parsons- or Maxx Crosby-level blockbuster trade for a singular superstar/savior in March. The Bills spread some cash around in free agency (Bradley Chubb, Dee Alford, C.J. Gardner-Johnson), added more potential contributors in the draft and identified the overall philosophy of the defense as the true infection. Stagnation. Predictability. Bend-don’t-break logic that works vs. Geno Smith and Tua Tagovailoa but never in the postseason.

It’s why we’ve heard the word attack so relentlessly.

It’s why Brady was the choice. His approach to the sport is different.

All of which ratchets up the pressure to deliver this year. Nothing has changed in that regard. Buffalo will not be judged on a random weekend in April. When it’s time to get a stop vs. Mahomes or Burrow or (God forbid) Bo Nix, will the 11 players on defense be instructed to play on their heels? Or attack? A mentality shift is required. By law, we’re required to again repeat those non-kneeldown stats in the team’s last six (of eight) playoff defeats.

They’re as pleasant as a 2x4 to the face:

• 52 non-kneeldown drives

• 25 touchdowns

• 13 field goals

• 12 punts

• 1 missed field goal

• 3 turnovers

• 199 points allowed … good for 3.83 points per drive. (Higher than the 2007 Patriots.)

Numbers this bad demand consequences. Watching the Eagles defense in ’24 or the Seahawks in ’25 before flipping over to Buffalo’s defense induces a Sopranos-to-Bluey whiplash. Rather than clean house with a team that’s won 66 percent of its regular-season games under this HC and GM, Pegula removed the defensive coach from the equation. We’ll see if it works. The other option is thinking McDermott will get it right the ninth time around in the playoffs.

As nine interviews for the HC vacancy raged on, Pegula was likely thinking that he made the right choice. Through those conversations, the Bills learned a lot about themselves. One enlightening tidbit of information? Around the NFL, offenses viewed their defense as elementary by modern standards. Pre-snap, candidates said they knew what McDermott was trying to do and effectively audibled into the correct play.

Architectural design, gameplanning and playcalling were re-confirmed as major problems.

This year’s draft struck me as just another step toward Buffalo’s hope of an entirely new vision on defense.

With the Bills leading 27-23 in the AFC divisional round — and 55 seconds to go — Sean Payton and the Broncos saw Tre’Davious White go down, saw Dane Jackson enter the game and realized the Bills were leaving that ice-cold replacement in 1-on-1 coverage. Nix found Marvin Mims for a 26-yard touchdown. These are the decisions that win or lose playoff games.

The inverse of this all is what Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo did to Buffalo on fourth and 5 in the AFC Championship one year prior. All game, the Chiefs threatened to blitz the right side of the Bills’ line… and backed off. This time, “Spags” sent the house and flustered Josh Allen into a prayer of a heave. A ruthless ambush that guard O’Cyrus Torrence admitted took everyone by surprise. One Chiefs assistant coach told us during the subsequent Super Bowl week that the Chiefs designate one person to study the offensive line’s protections. That’s it. That’s all this person does. Each down and distance, he tracks their movement patterns.

Intel is relayed to Spagnuolo and Andy Reid in real time.

When it’s time, KC pulls the trigger.

This is what high-level coaching looks like.

What high-level coaching does not look like is Greg Rousseau noting in the same game that the Chiefs ran plays they never saw before. Such as pulling a tackle left and running a QB keeper right in a diamond formation.

There’s two ways to interpret the January failings. McDermott would argue he needs players capable of winning 1-on-1’s across the board. He took not-so-subtle shots at the roster frequently last season. Beane would argue that he’s been supplying players of all shapes and sizes. There’s been hits and misses. Buffalo was talented enough to beat the Chiefs in the regular season five times before the four playoff defeats. Something is amiss.

Onto this ‘26 class, I see no problem in trying to enrich the two most critical positions on defense at No. 35 and No. 62 overall. Parker joins Chubb and Rousseau in that ongoing effort to make quarterbacks finally sweat in the postseason. Igbinosun will play more than anyone thinks. The most telling part of Beane’s post-draft presser was when he was asked about drafting a cornerback vs. a player at a position with a clearer path toward starting sooner.

“Corners are premium positions,” Beane said, “if you look at who makes the top dollars in the league. If you look at our season last year—and it’s happened before—those guys are all going to play. It’s a long season. When you have corners who are not capable, they get bull’s eyes on them. Real fast. Especially when you’re playing the primetime quarterbacks, the primetime offenses in this league.

“Think of how many guys we went through last season that played in the playoffs for us — or helped us get to the playoffs. You’re going to need those guys.”

He later labeled cornerback the team’s No. 1 need headed into the draft.

With Christian Benford and Maxwell Hairston slated to start, this may sound odd.

That is, until you remember how those last two playoff games ended.

In ’25, Denver immediately targeted Jackson on that critical play. He was called up to the 53 one week prior. Denver also went after safety Darnell Savage for a touchdown when Cam Lewis went down. In ’24, Kansas City abused Kaiir Elam when Benford suffered a concussion. The former first-round pick, an abject bust, should’ve never been in this position. Further, Benford admitted to Go Long he also should’ve never been playing in this game after suffering the same brain injury seven days prior against Baltimore. (“I was cooked,” he told us. “I was barbecued.”)

Too often, all of us fail to look beyond the 22 starters. Cornerback is too valuable. Several bodies are required.

For what the Bills are trying to construct — an attacking defense — combative corners are a must. At Ohio State, Igbinosun excelled on the boundary in Matt Patricia’s Cover 3 scheme. Penalties were a concern. The good news is that after committing a startling 12 penalties in ’24, he cut the figure down to four last season. “IGB” enjoys the sport’s violence, a trait that surely stood out to Buffalo.

“My mentality,” Igbinosun said. “I tackle with my whole life. I’m not afraid of anybody. That’s one of the reasons that separates me from the other corners in the country. That’s what I take pride in.”

All after going all-out on defense last spring.

Buffalo is banking on production from this injury-riddled crew, too.

Disguise and deception must make a comeback in this Bills defense. It’s been a while. The tricky part is not going Full Rex. Eleven years ago, the bodacious blatherskite inherited one of the NFL’s best defenses and his house was on fire by mid-October. Mario Williams openly protested his role. Marcell Dareus, the team’s $100 Million Dollar Man, was asked to drop into coverage. Penalties and chaos and mass confusion reigned supreme. Preston Brown, the linebacker with the green dot, articulated the predicament perfectly. Checks on checks on checks on checks zapped instinct. Many times, players were subbing onto the field late. Buffalo tried to find the perfect play call based on an offense’s formation. Into Year 2, Rex Ryan’s solution was to hire his twin brother. Rob Ryan, the true alpha in this relationship, made everything worse.

Those ’15 and ’16 Bills felt as if they were solving X for Y with quadratic x-squared polynomials.

The game’s changed a lot since then. Jim Leonhard is his own man. He’s also one of Rex Ryan’s favorite players ever. His challenge as Bills DC is striking a balance. The field shouldn’t transform into a calculus-level math equation.

This is a run-and-hit profession. Predictable alignments also cannot fly.

It’s also laughable to suggest the Bills didn’t do anything personnel-wise this offseason. Leonhard clearly targeted a handful of players he views as fits.

Now, Brady’s football life comes full circle. Exactly 13 years ago, he was a college senior at William & Mary dying for a job. The head coach, Jimmye Laycock, told him he’d fill a vacant assistant linebackers position with one of three candidates. And rather than go home after graduation, as Laycock advised, Brady stayed on campus to obsess over all of the Tribe’s opponents that season. He authored individual scouting reports — with an offensive flair. Brady didn’t know a lick about defense then, but the collegiate receiver could apply offensive acumen to the gig.

He got the job and, all fall, William & Mary coaches could tell Brady was seeing a different game.

Scott Boone, the DC, recalled Brady kindly correcting them on the opposing offense’s intent behind plays all season long. “That’s not really what is happening,” Brady would say. “They’re doing this to create this matchup.” William & Mary held opponents to 10 points or less in six games and Brady’s coaching career took off like a rocket ship. Boone was struck by Brady’s desire to evolve daily.

“That’s probably why his track has been as fast as it has,” Boone told us.

All the way to taking over the Buffalo Bills at age 36.

Fresh off the Denver loss, these Bills desperately needed a fresh perspective on defense… that offensive eye. Brady, more than any candidate, presented that vision.

In his interview for this job, Brady applied the same logic. He told everyone at the table what drove him mad as a playcaller. When headset communication shuts off at the 15-second mark of the play clock, he cannot talk to Josh Allen. Safeties start moving. Cornerbacks take a foreign step. A linebacker stunts. The alignment of those 11 defenders shape-shifts, and the quarterback is left to his own devices. Brady made it clear that he wants opposing playcallers paralyzed by this same helplessness.

One well-timed blitz. One confusing simulation. Anything that makes that quarterback hesitate on a critical down. Back to “13 Seconds,” the Bills have lacked a postseason knockout punch.

The best defensive coaches live for this moment.

Think Devon Witherspoon blitzing off the edge to batter Drake Maye in the Super Bowl.

This does come at the expense of loading up on offense. Beane has spent the least draft capital on offense of any team in the league since 2020. Granted, the next two teams on that list are the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs. All three clubs are piloted by MVP quarterbacks. On Day 3, at No. 125 overall, Beane did get around to drafting a wide receiver the second-highest he ever has. UConn’s Skyler Bell caught 101 balls for 1,278 yards and 13 touchdowns last season and he’l have a chance to play. Hall-of-Fame finalist Steve Smith called him his favorite receiver in the entire class.

Overall, the GM’s bet is that the best way to maximize Josh Allen is by refueling on defense.

Consider Moore part of this draft class, too. He essentially counts as the Bills’ 57^th overall pick. Before free agency even began, the Bills wanted to lock in a No. 1 wide receiver.

Buffalo’s wide receiver unit now features Moore, Khalil Shakir, Joshua Palmer, Keon Coleman, Bell and Tyrell Shavers. It also wouldn’t hurt if tight end Dalton Kincaid could stay healthy. This is a massive season for Beane’s top pick in ’23 (Kincaid) and ’24 (Coleman).

Picks need to hit. Let’s say Beane had 18 to 20 first-round grades. Buffalo could have packaged present and future picks together to climb up the board for a player who’s got the best chance to wreck a game in January. They could’ve beat Roseman to the punch on a prospect like USC wide receiver Makai Lemon. In each of the last three drafts, the Bills have opted for bundles of players. Logic being, you’ve got darts to throw. Cole Bishop took a giant step last season. Deone Walker may be the answer at nose tackle. To get to the Super Bowl, they’ll need one of those darts to hit the bull’s eye. Be it the lights turning on for Coleman… or T.J. Sanders busting out as a disruptive force… or Hairston staying healthy blanketing receivers.

Patience and depth ruled the ‘26 draft for the Bills.

A draft that reminded everyone of the new ethos for this team.

You heard it all from Brady in our 1 on 1. The team’s new head coach doesn’t want Buffalo being reactive on either side of the ball. “They’ve,” he makes clear, “got to play us.” Nor does anyone have to worry if the two people running the show are seeing eye to eye. There’s no guesswork on who’s behind which picks and there’s no separate press conferences for head coach and GM.

Beane and Brady are genuinely aligned.

Good or bad, save the draft grades.

All that matters now is what happens when Brady, Leonhard and the Bills face third down with less than two minutes left in the playoffs.

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By Bob McGinn

Are Kyler Murray or J.J. McCarthy capable of giving the Vikings championship-level quarterbacking?

How long will it be until the Packers’ Micah Parsons returns from ACL surgery, and when he does wear the No. 1 jersey will he be the same player in 2026 that he was in 2025?

Have the Bears done enough to overcome the abrupt retirement of center Drew Dalman, and is their turnover-driven defense headed for an almost inevitable downturn?

Did the Lions find a suitable replacement for Taylor Decker, their retired mainstay at tackle?

Those were the burning questions in the NFC North Division entering the NFL draft, and the only answer appears to have been found in Detroit with the first-round selection of tackle Blake Miller. I’m less confident about Logan Jones coming out of the second round and providing immediate plug-and-play for the Bears at center.

This might well turn out to become a historically weak draft and the powerful NFC North, with all four teams coming off winning seasons, was in no position to make more than marginal improvement after drafting in the bottom half of every round. Due in large part to Miller, the Lions’ draft on paper would earn the slightest of nods as the best in the division, but the separation from the other drafts is relatable to the two-game gap between the first- and last-place teams a season ago.

Drafting 17^th-18^th-20^th-25^th or thereabouts for all three days created considerable impatience. On Saturday, all five of the trades involving North clubs saw them give up draft-choice compensation to secure the player of their desire higher up in the round. A day earlier, the Lions moved up for edge rusher Derrick Moore and the Packers moved up for defensive tackle Chris McClellan. For the first time in nine years Green Bay didn’t have a pick in the first round.

North teams entered the draft on Thursday with 33 selections and found so little to their liking that they ended up with 29 players. Packers general managers Ted Thompson (2005-’17) and Brian Gutekunst, who took over for his mentor in 2018, hoarded choices like no one else by making wise use of the compensatory system and then frequently trading back. In the past 21 years the Packers drafted 201 players, an average of 9.57. Green Bay’s six selections this weekend, two fewer than what they controlled when the draft began, was its lowest total since 2004 when Mike Sherman, in his final draft as both coach and GM, also finished with six. Half of that draft (Ahmad Carroll, Donnell Washington, B.J. Sander) were Round 1-3 busts.

Besides the unspoken but obvious frustration over this year’s talent pool, the NFC North formed a united front when it came to priorities. Of the 29 picks, 18 were on defense, just 10 on offense and one on special teams. The Packers added merely one player on offense, one more than the Lions.

CHICAGO BEARS (11-6, 1-1)

4/124. MALIK MUHAMMAD, CB, Texas (6-0, 188, 4.45)

5/166. KEYSHAUN ELLIOTT, LB, Arizona State (6-1 ½, 232, 4.58)

6/213. JORDAN VAN DEN BERG, DT, Georgia Tech (6-3, 310, 4.94)

After adroitly filling needs at safety and center in the first two rounds, the Bears lost momentum with the uninspired selections of tight end Sam Roush and wide receiver-returner Zavion Thomas in the third round. Then in the fourth they traded away 22 slots in an exchange of fifth-round picks with Carolina to move up five berths in the fourth round in order to choose Muhammad. He was the 15^th cornerback drafted.

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By Bob McGinn

In 2025, the Lions never recovered from the loss of center Frank Ragnow to retirement. It was the single most important factor in the team’s fall from first to worst in the NFC North Division.

Then, in March, the Bears were shocked when center Drew Dalman announced his retirement. It came just two months after they took advantage of the Lions’ collapse and rose from last to first in the division.

Ragnow, in 2024, and Dalman last season were voted the starting center for the NFC in the Pro Bowl. Not only were they hailed for their consistent blocking but also for their outstanding ability to call out blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage.

The Lions got it worse than the Bears because Ragnow abruptly called it quits six weeks after the draft. Their only reasonable response was to shift veteran Graham Glasgow from guard back to center, and as hard as Glasgow tried his 10th season probably turned out to be his worst and he’s currently on the street.

Given time to maneuver, the Lions in March shored up their most prominent void by signing unrestricted free agent Cade Mays (three years, $25 million) and trading for another veteran center, Juice Scruggs.

The damage caused by Dalman’s leave in Chicago led to a pair of moves that should shore up the center position but of course also left other positions without reinforcement.

Last month, the Bears traded a fifth-round draft choice in 2027 to New England for Garrett Bradbury, the Patriots’ center during their Super Bowl run and the Vikings’ undersized starter from 2019-’24. On the surface, the Bears seemingly were prepared to defend their title with Bradbury.

“To me, he’s a low-end starter,” an executive in personnel for an NFL team said this week. “Veteran kind of guy. He’s smart, played a lot of football. But he has limitations. Definitely a step down from Dalman. Pass protection is going to be an issue as well as any power-gap scheme runs. They addressed it on a short-term basis. I expect them to draft one at some point in the middle rounds probably. Dalman was a loss.”

Already out of a mid-round pick in the draft next year, the Bears still felt compelled to draft a center in the second round Friday night. He was Iowa’s Logan Jones, a six-year collegian who started 51 games in the Big Ten.

More than likely it will be Jones, who will be 25 in October, starting on opening day if he’s not the main man on Day 1 of training camp. Bradbury has a $4.7 million base salary and can’t play another position. His departure, either via trade or waivers, appears likely.

“Captain, leader, grown man, pro-ready habits,” said Trey Koziol, the Bears’ director of player personnel. “Mature, composed. The football intelligence really stood out.”

With Dalman, who would be entering his sixth season at age 27, the Bears could have used that second-round draft choice (No. 57) on a much-needed defensive tackle or on a better wide receiver than speedster Zavion Thomas, who became their selection at No. 89. But barring injury, Jones should provide the interior stability that is critical for the development of Caleb Williams. The Lions could only have been that fortunate.

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CHICAGO BEARS (11-6, 1-1)

• 2/52. LOGAN JONES, C, Iowa (6-3, 300, 4.91)

• 3/69. SAM ROUSH, TE, Stanford (6-6, 266, 4.77)

• 3/89. ZAVION THOMAS, WR, LSU (5-10 ½, 192, 4.26)

When the Titans decided to trade up in the second round and take linebacker Anthony Hill, the Bears agreed to move down with them from No. 60 to No. 69 while adding a fifth-round selection. Before Chicago picked at No. 69 tight end Max Klare and defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim had just gone off the board.

Despite having Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet, the Bears decided to add another tight end in Roush, who will assume the No. 3 berth left vacant by the free-agent departure of Durham Smythe. Roush was productive and tested well athletically, but his 40 time was among the slowest at the position and his arm length (30 5/8 inches) was the shortest.

If another tight end seemed like a luxury pick in the third round, perhaps it was. Among the 19 players that went before the Bears selected again were defensive tackles Chris McClellan (Packers), Albert Regis and Domonique Orange (Vikings).

Koziol described Roush as one of the few tight ends with the ability to play all over the formation and both catch and block effectively. “He definitely looks the part,” he said.

With D.J. Moore having been traded to Buffalo, the Bears expect Luther Burden to move into the starting role opposite Rome Odunze. Kalif Raymond, the gutsy former Lion who took a one-year, $3.5 million deal from Chicago, probably is more of a No. 4 receiver than a No. 3.

So the Bears tried with Thomas, who is a little bigger than Raymond and even faster.

“Good little player,” one scout said this month. “He’s actually put together a lot better than you’d think when you get up on him. He’s 190 pounds compared to some of these guys that are in the 160s, 170s. He kind of looks like a running back, to be honest. His whole thing has been production. He’s never really found a defined role but he’s extremely fast, athletic, versatile. He’ll be a returner immediately for somebody. He’s run the ball out of the backfield. He does a lot of things pretty good, but nothing elite. But 4.29 is 4.29.”

Thomas was the 15^th of 16 wide receivers taken in the top 100 picks. Raymond, who has returned punts reliably for a decade, gives the Bears remarkable depth in the kicking game.

DETROIT LIONS (9-8)

• 2/44. DERRICK MOORE, Edge, Michigan (6-4, 256, no 40)

Moore didn’t work out at the combine, citing a hamstring injury. Three weeks later at pro day, he performed poorly in the jumps (vertical of 30 inches, broad jump of 9-7) but didn’t run the 40 or shuttles. NFL teams will never really know how fast he is.

His arm length (33 3/8) compared favorably at the position but his hands were among the smallest at 9 1/8. Having started 24 of 53 games, his production (21 ½ sacks, 95 tackles, 24 ½ tackles for loss) was average to slightly above.

Nevertheless, GM Brad Holmes grew antsy watching as edge rushers went 35^th, 40^th and 41^st early in the second round. Finally, he traded up with the Jets, parting with a fourth-round pick in order to move from No. 50 to No. 44 and take Moore, who thus became the ninth player at the position drafted. Missouri’s Zion Young went next to the Ravens.

“It’s hard to find guys — I’m not going to say we’re picky — but we just have a certain type that we like and he fits those boxes,” said Holmes. “Right in that area, there were multiple edge rushers that were flying off. That’s the fascination of the draft: you don’t know. Derrick might have been our No. 3 or No. 4 edge rusher, whatever it is, but today he was our No. 1 for what was available. For other teams, he could have been their No. 7 or No. 8. You can’t worry about that. You’ve just got to get the guy that you want.”

Moore became just the third edge rusher that Holmes has taken in the six drafts he has directed. He will compete with veteran D.J. Wonnum, retread Payton Turner and eager second-year man Ahmed Hassanein for playing time opposite Aidan Hutchinson, another former Michigan player.

In my pre-draft interviews with half a dozen scouts, Moore drew his highest marks for overall strength and toughness. There were undercurrents of overachievement in the assessments. “There’s been some better defensive ends that have come out the last few years at Michigan,” one evaluator said. “He power rushes all the time. He gets into what I call personal battles and gets fighting the guy and not getting off the block.”

After taking Moore, the Lions were done for the night because their third-round pick had been dealt to Jacksonville a year ago in a draft-day deal that brought wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa to Detroit.

The charge forward to land Moore was the 12^th time in Holmes’ tenure that he was unable to wait patiently in his slot and instead parted with draft capital. Three of those deals turned out favorably (for wide receiver Jameson Williams, safety Brian Branch, guard Tate Ratledge). Three turned out poorly (for nose tackle Brodric Martin, defensive tackle Mekhi Wingo, tackle Gio Manu). One broke even (for linebacker Derrick Barnes). And it could be said that the jury’s out on four others (for cornerback Terrion Arnold, running back Sione Vaki, guard Miles Frazier and TeSlaa).

On Saturday, the Lions have six selections to address needs at linebacker and in the secondary.

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GREEN BAY PACKERS (9-7-1, 0-1)

• 2/52. BRANDON CISSE, CB, South Carolina (5-11 ½, 189, 4.46)

• 3/77. CHRIS McCLELLAN, DT, Missouri (6-3 ½, 313, 5.04)

Until Friday night, the Packers hadn’t drafted a cornerback in the first four rounds since Eric Stokes went in the first round in 2021.

Obviously with that in mind, an executive for another NFL team offered this pre-draft assessment of the depth chart at cornerback in Green Bay that consists of Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine, Benjamin St-Juste and Kamal Hadden.

“I keep saying they need to draft a corner but they haven’t done it,” said the personnel man. “Maybe this is the year. Nixon and Valentine are free agents after this year and they don’t have a lot of depth. St-Juste had an OK year last year for the Chargers but he was really bad two years ago with the Commanders. But if they continue to play a lot of zone defense, which they should under (Jonathan) Gannon because that’s what he did (at Arizona), he might be OK. But he’s just a backup.”

GM Brian Gutekunst’s only early-round corners include Jaire Alexander (first round) and Josh Jackson (second round) in 2018, and Stokes three years later. What made the selection of Cisse interesting was the same flaw that both he and Stokes brought into the NFL.

Of the 15 scouts that I discussed Stokes with five years ago, four remarked that his hands were a huge negative. “He can’t catch a ball but he can run fast,” said one.

Stokes (6-0 ½, 194, 4.31) didn’t have an interception in 22 games at Georgia from 2018-’19. He picked four in 2020, but one scout said several of them were poorly thrown and labeled them as “gifts.”

As a rookie, Stokes started 14 of 16 games and had one interception. However, he dropped six others. That was one more than any player in Green Bay had since I began charting drops in 1998. The Packers let Stokes walk as a free agent in March 2025 and he went on to start for the Raiders. In 61 career games, he has one pick.

Five cornerbacks had been selected when the Packers drafted Cisse. The Packers indicated he was equally effective both in press-man and off-man coverage. Three of the personnel people that discussed Cisse with me before the draft mentioned that poor balls skills were a major factor why he finished with just two interceptions in 34 games (21 starts).

“He can’t catch at all,” said one scout. “Ball skills are terrible.”

Mike Owen, one of the Packers’ national scouts, said: “I thought he had good ball skills.”

After sending Kenny Clark to Dallas as part of the trade for Micah Parsons, the Packers had problems most of the season stopping the inside run. “They definitely need another run defender,” said one scout before the draft, adding that the departed Colby Wooden was a better run stopper than Devonte Wyatt, Karl Brooks and ex-Viking Javon Hargrave. Other holdovers include Warren Brinson, Nazir Stackhouse, Jonathan Ford and Jordon Riley.

Thus, the decision was made to trade up from No. 84 to No. 77 in the third round with Tampa Bay at the cost of a fifth-round pick and take McClellan, a backup for two seasons at Florida and a starter for two seasons at Missouri.

He has good arm length (34), massive hands (11) and excellent speed. Green Bay selected McClellan over other defensive tackles such as Domonique Orange, Albert Regis and Darrell Jackson.

“He can play the nose, he can play the three (technique) and some of our big end stuff as well,” said Milt Hendrickson, the club’s director of football operations. “He’s just one of those guys, even though he’s four years in college, he’s still scratching the surface a little bit. He’s a guy that can fit in a variety of different ways.”

MINNESOTA VIKINGS (9-8)

• 2/51. JAKE GOLDAY, Edge-LB, Cincinnati (6-4 ½, 237, 4.58)

• 3/82. DOMONIQUE ORANGE, DT, Iowa State (6-2 ½, 322, 5.17)

• 3/97. CALEB TIERNAN, T, Northwestern (6-7 ½, 323, no 40)

• 3/98. JAKOBE THOMAS, S, Miami (6-1, 214, 4.57)

While it’s true that Jonathan Greenard’s sack total dipped from 12 in 2024, his first season in Minnesota, to three in 2025, he still garnered respect from opponents.

“I know he didn’t have high sack numbers this year,” one scout said in January. “But when you watch the film he’s consistently disruptive.”

In my All-NFC North team for 2025 Greenard ranked third behind Micah Parsons and Aidan Hutchinson. The nice problem for the Vikings was that Andrew Van Ginkel ranked fourth and Dallas Turner was sixth. After a disappointing three-sack rookie season, Turner registered 6 ½ of his eight sacks in the final eight games.

“To win a game as a pass rusher, I’d take Turner,” said another scout after the season. “To win a game instinctively, I’d take Van Ginkel. To win it overall, Greenard is probably that guy.”

Minus a salary cap, the Vikings of course would have retained all three and employed them in a dynamic rotational arrangement. But with Greenard angling for a raise from his $19 million salary for 2026 the Vikings traded him to the Eagles in the middle of the proceedings Friday night.

The Eagles added Greenard to their edge rusher mix that is without Jaelan Phillips, who signed with Carolina. They signed Greenard to a four-year extension worth $100 million with $50 million guaranteed, according to ESPN.

In return, the Vikings got the second of the Eagles’ two third-round picks (No. 98, not No. 68) and a third-round pick in 2027. They reportedly also trimmed $12.5 million from their salary cap.

“What you see is a relentless player with physical tools,” Eagles GM Howie Roseman said in reference to Greenard. “He can win in multiple ways. He is hard to block. I know when we play Minnesota, we are worried about where he is at all times.”

Golday played a multitude of positions during a five-year career at FCS Central Arkansas and Cincinnati. The Vikings return Eric Wilson, Blake Cashman and Ivan Pace at linebacker. Look for Golday, an effective rusher from various locales, to become a useful weapon under defensive coordinator Brian Flores on passing downs.

“Most teams saw me playing off the ball (linebacker),” said Golday. “Some saw me doing a little bit of everything. What makes me special is my versatility. I played mike and then sam, which basically was a nickel and I was in coverage a lot.”

Orange is a hulking run stuffer. Along with Caleb Banks, the first-round pick, the Vikings’ front figures to take on a dramatically different look from recent seasons in terms of bulk.

Tiernan walks in as the No. 4 tackle but with the athleticism one day to take over for either Christian Darrisaw or Brian O’Neill.

Thomas had an up-and-down career but couldn’t be in a better spot. Whether Harrison Smith comes back or not, the Vikings have openings at safety.

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ICYMI:

ICYMI:

Inside this piece:

• Why Carnell Tate is exactly what the Titans need.

• Howie Roseman plays a different game. Again.

• The Patriot Way!

• Another smart draft in… Cleveland?

• Caleb Downs → Dallas.

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Cameras panned into the Tennessee Titans draft room. Somewhere in the back, you could see Brian Daboll. The team’s new offensive coordinator wasn’t front and center as his team’s No. 4 overall selection neared. In that exact moment, you couldn’t help but wonder what curse words were cycling through his mind. Arizona had just selected running back Jeremiyah Love.

Surely, the rebuilding Titans would take a defensive player at No. 5.

Then, the name dropped.

Carnell Tate. Wide receiver. Ohio State.

Love this pick for a Titans team on the hunt for relevancy. And not only because an angel gets its wings every time mock drafts are burnt to smithereens.

If you had the misfortune of watching the Titans through the 2025 season, I apologize. It was a harrowing experience. Out is Brian Callahan. In is Robert Saleh.

This season’s all about figuring out whether or not 2025 No. 1 pick Cam Ward is the future.

Love would’ve unquestionably helped on that quest, but Tate is the next-best consolation. All 11th hour nitpicking of the Buckeyes wideout felt like paralysis by analysis. Turn on any Ohio State game and you see a 6-foot-2, 222-pound weapon who makes everything look easy. His routes are poetic. Not rigid, not labored. With subtle cuts up field, Tate routinely wasted DBs. The definition of football speed. “I saw him run by this guy, I saw him run by that guy,” one scout told Bob McGinn. “He runs by whoever he needs to get past.” It’s rare that a 20-year-old looks this polished.

His hands are smooth. He doesn’t fight the ball. Tate high-pointed acrobatic catches in traffic.

Watching Tate get separation at the top of routes reminded me of covering a young Davante Adams in Wisconsin. There’s a timely burst a stopwatch fails to capture.

Ohio State is a wide receiver factory, too. Brian Hartline’s work with everyone who’s passed through Columbus helped get him the head job at South Florida.

In theory, Ward now has a true weapon to grow with in Daboll’s offense.

“He’s a bigger, vertical guy,” Titans GM Mike Borgonzki said. “The route running is very efficient. I thought he had exceptional ball skills to be able to track the football, his catch radius, downfield. He’s going to be a great fit in this offense. Tate has the ability to play big downfield. All these contested catches downfield. His ability to go up and catch the football, contort his body in certain ways, I think is going to be great for Cam.”

Borgonzki referenced that “burst” deep. He sees it off the line of scrimmage, too.

Explosion is sorely needed in Nashville.

Passing on a defensive player at No. 4 overall makes more sense the closer you look at Saleh’s track record, too. In San Francisco, he made a habit of getting production out of players drafted beyond the first round. Fred Warner, perhaps the best linebacker in the NFL, was the 70th overall pick. Linebacker Dre Greenlaw went No. 148. Cornerback Deommodore Lenoir (No. 172) and safety Talanoa Hufanga (No. 180) both were fifth-rounders. Azeez Al-Shaair shared his wild undrafted story with us last season. One preseason hit with the 49ers changed his life. Saleh saw a special something inside of Al-Shaair.

Hell, recognizing anyone on the 49ers’ defense last season was a challenge. Ninety percent of coaches fail miserably with that injury-ravaged group. San Francisco was one win from the No. 1 seed.

Saleh did not see a need to use top-5 capital on a defensive player. He even got to work on that defense at the tail end of the first round, trading back in for Auburn edge rusher Keldric Faulk, one of the youngest players in the draft. Borgonzki sees shades of Arik Armstead.

Tennessee has a long way to go to brawl with the three teams in its own division, but I wouldn’t bet against Saleh ensuring AFC South games are bloodbaths. Closer you look, it’s obvious he got a raw deal in New York. He’ll have no problems fixing this defense as draft classes stack up.

Ward, Tate, Daboll, even free-agent add Wan’Dale Robinson now supply tangible hope on offense.

In college, Tate was the No. 2 receiving option. In the pros, he’ll be the No. 1. That’s uncommon. Tate also admits he had no idea he could go this early in the draft.

But he doesn’t lack confidence. Nor should he.

“I bring any and everything to the table. I’m a complete receiver. I do it all.”

Howie does it again

Pittsburgh broke the all-time record for single-day attendance at the NFL draft on Thursday night, per Adam Schefter. A reported 320,000 fans descended upon the Steel City. The city was rocking when it was time for the Steelers to make their selection at No. 21 overall, too.

Terrible Towels took over the crowd. “Renegade” blared. Legends past were all on-hand.

If only those Steelers fans knew what was happening behind the scenes. As revealed after the fact, Steelers GM Omar Khan was on the phone with Makai Lemon when the Philadelphia Eagles called to inform the wide receiver they had traded ahead of Pittsburgh — at No. 20 — to select him. A wild scene in the green room.

The Steelers settled for Arizona State tackle Max Iheanachor. Born in Nigeria, Iheanachor moved to Compton, Calif., at 13 and played football for the first time in 2022 in junior college. He’s a project. He was not Khan’s first choice.

Howie Roseman, the Eagles GM, got the last laugh. Every year, we see general managers freak out and give up too much capital to get their guy. Roseman’s been with the Eagles since 2000. He has a feel for what’s real, what’s smoke and always know when to snake his way up the board. Since January, all we’ve heard is that this is the year to trade down. Roseman wisely defies convention. On draft day, he often waits for a talented player to slide… slide a little more… and pounces.

In ‘21, he traded with the Cowboys to land DeVonta Smith. In ‘26, he traded the Cowboys the 114th and 137th picks to slide up from No. 23 to No. 20 for Lemon. Clearly, it was worth it.

I also like the strategy of aggressively chasing one of the three best wideouts in the draft. There’s a noticeable drop-off after Tate, Jordyn Tyson and Lemon. Maybe Lemon isn’t the prototypical “X.” Philly is still positioned nicely for life after A.J. Brown.

Here’s their weaponry around Jalen Hurts:

• RB Saquon Barkley

• WR DeVonta Smith

• WR Makai Lemon

• WR Dontayvion Wicks

• WR Hollywood Brown

• TE Dallas Goedert

There’s no excuses for the team’s highly compensated (and maligned) franchise guy. Hurts must start throwing the football over the middle of the field with receivers who specialize in precisely that.

There are scouts who see Amon-Ra St. Brown-like scrappiness to USC’s Lemon.

Three years ago, there wasn’t much hype around the wide receiver class, either. Nobody was even taken until the 20th pick. Jaxson Smith-Njigba is now the richest receiver in the game. Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison have panned out. With one trade, Roseman made sure he got himself into a similar sweet spot of the draft.

The key? Not passing on Justin Jefferson for Jalen Reagor. That decision surely weighs on Roseman’s mind.

The Patriot Way

In another universe with another owner, the New England Patriots could punish Mike Vrabel. This whole thing only gets grosser. Three weeks ago, the head coach thought he could swiftly make this all disappear by dismissing photos with Dianna Russini as “laughable.” So much for that. This smugness might’ve been what compelled someone else to bring a new round of photos to light with the New York Posts’ "Page Six releasing new pics of the two kissing at a NYC bar on Thursday. Apparently this extramarital affair has lingered on for at least six years, right through the birth of her children and Vrabel moving from Tennessee to Cleveland to Foxborough.

Scummy cheaters are nothing new in pro sports, but there’s a shocking level of brazenness to what Vrabel and Russini carried out. Both had the audacity to insist we ignore our lying eyes. Never mind the fact that they were interlocking fingers… at a $2,160/night, two-person bungalow… two hours from the owners meeting. (Addressed last week here.) Russini resigned from her (extremely lucrative) position at The Athletic. Her career as a reporter appears over.

So, what about Vrabel? While this is not apples to apples, you cannot help but wonder how he benefitted from this arrangement. Speaking of those Eagles, there sure was a lot of A.J. Brown reporting from The Athletic’s top NFL investigator last season, reporting that figured to benefit New England. I cannot imagine Roseman is thrilled with this week’s developments.

Then, there’s the issue of his own team. First came indignant defiance, the belittling of anyone who’d take those Sedona photos seriously. This week, we saw a somber, guilt-filled Vrabel tell us that he addressed the matter with the team.

Next, a midnight report indicated he’s going to miss Day 3 of the draft to seek “counseling.”

Right on cue, the next day, the second round of photos drop and Vrabel decided to hold another press conference. Words were spoken. Substance, however, was not in short supply. He claimed the initial “laughable” comment was meant to protect his family and didn’t provide a coherent answer as to why Saturday was best for a therapy session. Apparently it’s Family First… just not Rounds 1 through 3. Football is most important on those days. Asked if he’d need to step away from future football obligations, he left the door open.

However you slice this, Vrabel’s credibility takes a colossal hit. Affairs unfortunately happen in the world. But this was an NFL head coach parading around out in the open — humiliating his family — while harping on the virtues of faith. There will be players who no longer take him seriously. I’m mildly surprised he wasn’t encouraged to take a leave of absence this offseason and let Josh McDaniels run the team until further notice.

Maybe that’s because his boss cannot take a moral high ground.

These Patriots are owned by a billionaire who enjoyed the happy ending heard ‘round the world.

New England has won more than any team this century. This is also the franchise of Orchids of Asia and Spygate and Deflategate and Aaron Hernandez. If there’s something football to take away from this all, it’s the lack of a moral compass from this franchise as a whole. Vrabel did phenomenal work with these Patriots, as documented. This team was in a bad, bad place post-Belichick. But all of this cheating, lying and public conceit leaves a permanent stain.

No Huddle

• Caleb Downs fell to the 12th overall pick. He’s a safety. He also may go down as one of Jerry Jones’ finest draft picks ever. Hard to see the Buckeye DB failing. DC Christian Parker will find ways to weaponize him.

• Miami’s starting from scratch and it makes sense to select a left tackle to protect Malik Willis. Still, I was surprised to see new coach Jeff Hafley take Alabama’s Kadyn Proctor. Several scouts around the NFL question his passion, a red flag for a coach who says he wants players that sincerely love this sport. (One scout to McGinn: “Had the transfer portal issue where he kind of quit on the team and was going back to Iowa and then he came crawling back and his teammates accepted him.”)

• Rueben Bain Jr. fell to No. 15 overall. He was dominant at Miami with 9.5 sacks and 15.5 TFLs. His style of play blends well with the longer Al-Quadin Muhammad. Both are violent. Both give Todd Bowles’ sagging pass rush some bite. Credit to Real Football co-host Jim Monos for hinting at a Bain slide. He’s a historical outlier. Teams pass on edge rushers with short arms for a reason — the NFL is a totally different game.

• The Buffalo Bills traded back three times. After dealing a second-rounder for DJ Moore, they wanted to recoup picks. Prediction here is that Brandon Beane and Joe Brady find one of those space-eating nose tackles for Jim Leonhard’s defense. Two are still on the board: Ohio State’s Kayden McDonald and Georgia’s Christen Miller. More intel here.

• Love the NFL cutting back the time to pick. Eight minutes is perfect. Keep this thing moving.

• Shedeur Sanders? Deshaun Watson? Spergon Wynn? No clue who ends up starting the most games for the Cleveland Browns at quarterback. It’s an evergreen concern. But after refueling the roster with a ton of young talent last spring (DT Mason Graham, LB Carson Schwesinger, RB Quinshon Judkins, TE Harold Fannin Jr.), they’re off to another promising start. The Browns were able to trade down — as widely speculated — and still get Utah tackle Spencer Fano. At No. 24, they then added explosive KC Concepcion. Going offensive line, then wide receiver was a smart order of operations for this team. At this point last year, guilty as charged. I thought passing on Travis Hunter would be a mistake. That take is starting to look dead wrong as Cleveland meticulously reloads. It’s nothing flashy. They’ve got some underrated personnel men who know what they’re looking for. (Now, about that QB…)

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Sean McVay had the look of a man who’d love nothing more than to clench his teeth and shriek at the top of his lungs. I half-expected him to grab an electric guitar and go full Robbie Hart. The NFL’s perpetual optimist who never, ever breaks character sat next to Les Snead and kept his words to a minimum. As if anything he said would be used against him in the court of law.

Why, yes, the Los Angeles Rams head coach did speak to Matthew Stafford before his club selected Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson 13th overall on Thursday night.

No, he will not share what was said.

Simpson’s prospects in Los Angeles?

“We’ll see,” he said through a forced smile. “He’s going to compete with Stetson.”

It was cringeworthy. And awkward. And you can only imagine what the reigning MVP had to say on that phone call. History also tells us that one day of rage can precede 10 to 15 years of paradise at the quarterback position. Stafford remains a star-level talent. Stafford is also 38 years old and every QB not named Tom Brady falls off a cliff at 40. McVay has also flirted with retirement and TV jobs. Four years ago, Amazon reportedly offered the coach a five-year, $100 million broadcasting contract — he’s liable to strut right into TV money at any point.

Snead, to his credit, doesn’t want to get caught with his pants down. He doesn’t want the Rams to slip into the same black hole as the team in this draft’s host city. Who knows when the Rams will ever be picking in the top 15 again. Snead saw a rare opportunity to draft and develop a quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons’ original pick.

Nobody knows if Simpson is Brock Purdy or Kenny Pickett. There’s organizational logic to follow.

Above all? Round 1 told us again that the NFL Draft isn’t only a crapshoot for teams. It’s an even crazier crapshoot for the players themselves. Forget McVay suppressing emotions. Jeremiyah Love’s ability to grin through the Arizona Cardinals making him the No. 3 overall pick deserves a trophy. If any non-QB should’ve pulled an Eli Manning and held a team’s jersey as if it’s been sprayed by a skunk, it’s him. This was the scenario we feared on draft eve — a special talent getting banished to the Bidwillian badlands.

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Maybe this hurdling, pulverizing, home-run hitter from Notre Dame is good enough to shine in the pros. He’s heading to a team with no quarterback plan, a bad offensive line, an unproven first-year coach selected late in the cycle and perhaps the worst ownership in the NFL. Before even thinking about evading linebackers on other teams, Love must contend with his own team. This union is an objective buzzkill.

Say whatever we want about Ty Simpson the prospect. Scouts are torn. He was the most polarizing prospect in this draft.

He landed in quarterback heaven and avoided the quarterback hells of Arizona and Florham Park, N.J.

A cavalry of Steelers legends walking out to terrible towels a’waving. Adoring fans on-site. Glowing reviews from TV commentators. Choreographed fist bumps in draft rooms. Amid all draft pageantry, it’s easy to forget that 32 teams have 32 ecosystems. That’s the beauty of those NFLPA report cards. They shine light on just how different life is from one city to the next across the continental United States. Sam Darnold was sentenced to a football prison with the New York Jets and universally written off as a bust before — finally — linking up with good coaching in San Francisco and Minnesota to revitalize his career and winning the whole damn thing last season in Seattle. (A “tough son of a bitch,” indeed.)

Props to Simpson for betting on himself. He could’ve stayed in college and earned $6.5 million to play for the Miami Hurricanes or $5 million at multiple other schools. Instead, he decided to go pro in a weak quarterback class. It was a colossal gamble. No prospect was picked apart more than the 6-foot-1, 212-pounder with only 15 starts to his name. “He’s a little guy that’s wild and inconsistent,” one scout told Go Long. “He doesn’t have good feel for timing. He’s terrible against pressure. He’s a good little athlete but he doesn’t escape pressure well. He should have stayed in school. You’re really just gambling.” Other scouts saw a quarterback who’s “always in command” and “can manipulate safeties with his eyes.” He played in a pro-style offense and the 2025 Alabama roster wasn’t close to the Crimson Tide teams of years past. One scout even said there’s an argument Simpson is better than Fernando Mendoza, the Las Vegas Raiders’ No. 1 overall pick.

With the Rams, he’ll have a legitimate chance to prove believers right.

McVay likely preferred a player who helps the Rams win in 2026. At one point this spring, he admitted to Kay Adams that she probably had evaluated Simpson more than him. It won’t affect his job. He’ll give Simpson the Shanahan- and O’Connell-tier of coaching Darnold received to reboot his career. Remember, Matt LaFleur wasn’t exactly jumping for joy when his GM took a quarterback in 2020. Now, Jordan Love is the feather in his cap.

Stafford won’t be thrilled, but it’s not like he’ll go into a tank of self-pity and sabotage his team. The presence of a first-round pick in his room is another motivator. Much like Aaron Rodgers in 2021 and 2022, bet on Stafford elevating. He doesn’t even seem like someone who’d hold his team hostage for 4 1/2 months of an offseason. He’ll be a big boy.

All of which helps Simpson. He gets to see how a future Hall of Famer works every day.

“He’s one of the greatest of all-time,” Simpson said during his post-pick call with reporters. “We watched his film all the time when I was at Bama. The stuff the Rams did with Coach McVay. The fact that I get to be in a room and soak up all that knowledge — I couldn’t ask for a better situation.”

Situation is exponentially more valuable than we realize. Examples abound. If Patrick Mahomes is coached by Rick Dennison and David Culley in Buffalo instead of Andy Reid, it’s a smidge tougher for the Texas Tech daredevil to find his GOAT trajectory. Purdy, “Mr. Irrelevant,” started his career as a third-stringer. The 49ers’ scheme perfectly matched his skillset. What happens to him if he’s drafted by any coach who isn’t from this tree?

Love, meanwhile, has the immense pleasure of playing for one of the NFL’s worst teams.

The Cardinals want a tantalizing name on the marquee. They’re a bland franchise. This pick also reeks of a family drowning in debt that purchases a Ferrari and goes on an all-inclusive vacation. Not unlike the New York Giants in 2018. GM Dave Gettleman saw a gold jacket in Barkley’s future. He was mesmerized. Guard Quentin Nelson would’ve been the more prudent choice. (Or, you know, that quarterback in Wyoming.) Barkley had his moments through three head coaches in six years with the Giants, but didn’t get to showcase his game in full until Year 7. As Philadelphia Eagle. Now, he’s up to 2,342 career touches on the odometer.

God speed, Jeremiyah.

In a weird way, both the Rams and Miami Dolphins had the luxury of selecting a prospect at any position. One team is a Super Bowl contender with no holes. One team is completely starting over. In L.A., there’s no need for Simpson to see the field any time soon. Again, this could backfire. Simpson doesn’t bring the enticing physical traits of Jordan Love when the Packers did this all six years ago. You may recall the Utah State quarterback drawing “Mahomes” comparisons from a teammate at Go Long. That’s not Simpson. We may look back at the 2026 draft and wonder why on earth the Rams traded the 29th pick for a cornerback on a second contract (Trent McDuffie), while also passing on a slew of options at No. 13: tight end Kenyon Sadiq, wide receiver Makai Lemon, edge Rueben Bain to name a few.

The all-in, win-now, F-them-picks GM may live to regret his decision on April 24, 2026.

Or, this could be the F-my-own-coach move that effectively bridges the present with the future and the Rams contend for Super Bowls long after Stafford retires. Snead must see shimmers of greatness in Simpson’s small sample size. The lack of experience is a concern. Purdy started in 3x the number of games as Simpson in college.

We’re unabashedly pro-player ‘round here. Simply, it’s nice to see a rookie quarterback head to a perfect environment for once. Almost all taken in the first round are banished to awful circumstances. GMs of winning teams are terrified to make this move because of what we saw out of McVay during that presser and because it undoubtedly pissed off Stafford. Potential collateral damage spooks everyone when, in truth, the best decisions in life are often the most difficult.

So, off they go.

One prospect is into anime. Jeremiyah Love is a physical marvel leaping over defenders into the end zone. Watch a highlight reel of this running back and you’ll think there’s nothing that could ever stop this player on a football field.

One prospect is a Legos fanatic. Ty Simpson is an undersized quarterback with a good-not-elite arm who prefers to shimmy around the pocket. Watch a highlight reel of this quarterback and you’ll gently nod in approval before carrying on with your day.

Aesthetically, the two players are on totally different ends of the spectrum.

But so are their new employers, and that may matter more than anything.

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We’ll continue with more coverage from Round 1 and all rounds of the NFL Draft here at Go Long.

By Bob McGinn

The Bears and the Lions sensibly went ahead and plugged voids in their starting lineup. The reckless Vikings might have been plugging a slot machine for all that’s guaranteed out of their opening salvo Thursday night.

In an NFL draft widely panned by personnel people as inferior, especially at the top, three NFC North teams made a pick whereas the Packers, having traded their first-round choice last summer, must wait to get started until the second and third rounds begin Friday in Pittsburgh at 7 p.m.

Here’s an analysis of Day 1 for what has been an elite division over the past several seasons.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS (9-8)

1/18. CALEB BANKS, DT, FLORIDA (6-6, 327, 5.08)

With the Vikings on the clock, and after reconsidering their roster and the players remaining, I jotted down eight names that might have been most attractive to them. The list included wide receiver Makai Lemon, tackles Monroe Freeling and Caleb Lomu, running back Jadarian Price, defensive tackles Kayden McDonald, Peter Woods and Christen Miller, and safety Dillon Thieneman.

At wide receiver, the Vikings are without a suitable replacement for the capable No. 3 Jalen Nailor, and Jordan Addison’s future has been clouded by off-field incidents. Christian Darrisaw, their gifted left tackle, has a bad knee, and right tackle Brian O’Neill will be entering his ninth season. The returning running-back tandem of Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason lacks pizazz.

In a wise decision, the Vikings cut Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, the veteran defensive tackles who were disappointments in their only seasons in Minnesota. Jalen Redmond had a breakout season, Levi Drake Rodriguez made major strides, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins showed a measure of promise as a rookie and free agent Taki Taimani will compete in his third season.

“Redmond and Rodriguez are really good,” one NFC personnel man said. “They deserve to start. One thing I’d say is they’re not very big inside. They might want to add a little size but the way they play, they can kind of get away with it.”

And, at safety, they need at least one even if Harrison Smith were to decide to play a 15^th season.

Then the Vikings drafted Banks, a classic boom-or-bust pick at a position that probably has seen more gambles over the years than any other.

It always has been hard to find a big man who can run. It’s harder yet to find a fast big man who is in shape and plays all-out every down.

Banks is a physical specimen with speed, the longest arms (35 inches) of the top 30 defensive linemen and massive hands (10 7/8 inches). But as good as he looks, some scouts adopted a hands-off attitude because of minimal production, marginal conditioning, limited pass rush and questionable instincts.

“He looks the part completely,” one scout said. “Just rare all the way around traits-wise. He’s huge, and light on his feet. There’s some laziness to him, some bullshit to him, some excuses to him. There’s nothing out there that says he will give us his best. He’s got a lot of your talented, underachiever qualities that a lot of D-linemen have.”

Coach Kevin O’Connell and defensive coordinator Brian Flores undoubtedly were the drivers of the decision. The Wilf family ownership fired GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah on Jan. 30 and at the same time announced that longtime executive Rob Brzezinski, whose area of expertise was more on the business side, would assume the GM duties through the draft.

“It’s a chance to really get a difference-maker,” said O’Connell. “We feel very confident we selected a top 10-type talent. In the NFC North, when that name went up on the board, people that play us twice a year, they’ve got to think about some things now.”

In their wildest dreams, the Vikings would hope Banks becomes another Kevin Williams (6-5, 311, 4.85), their great under-tackle and No. 9 pick in 2003 who made the Pro Bowl six times in an 11-year career for Minnesota.

Their nightmare would be defensive end Dimitrius Underwood (6-6, 278, 4.85), the No. 29 pick in 1999 who is thought to have attempted suicide early in his first training camp before being quickly released. He played 19 games without a start for Dallas in 2000-’01 to end his career.

Underwood was the finest physical specimen in the group that year. “Built like a statue,” one scout said. “Absolutely incredible. With him, it’s definitely all between the ears and (in) the heart. If that all straightens out and the stars all align perfectly the guy might be a great player. But I’m deathly afraid of him.”

Banks’ underachieving characteristics are worrisome enough. Just as concerning might be his 12-month foot injury that limited him to three games in 2025 and resulted in surgery March 9 to repair a fractured fourth metatarsal bone. One thing NFL teams fear are massive men with bad feet.

Underwood suffered a sprained ankle in August before his senior season at Michigan State and never played a down all year. Spartans coach Nick Saban intervened to get Underwood invited to the combine but then he wouldn’t work out.

O’Connell brushed off the foot injury, citing multiple examinations by the club’s medical staff.

“He has the athleticism to wreck the pocket,” said O’Connell.

DETROIT LIONS (9-8)

1/17. BLAKE MILLER, T, Clemson (6-6 ½, 318, 5.05)

Ten years ago, the Lions took tackle Taylor Decker (6-7, 310, 5.23) with the No. 16 choice. At Ohio State, he backed up in 12 games as a freshman before starting all 42 games from 2013-’15. Scouts said he was highly durable, tenacious, technically sound and extremely intelligent.

“Just a man’s man,” said one evaluator before the 2016 draft. “Wins you over with his leadership. You could see this guy running for Congress some day.”

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Happy Draft Day.

Cannot wait to hang out with all of you virtually.

Once again, we’ll have a running live chat. Join us on your browser or right inside the user-friendly Substack app. I’ll email out the thread a couple hours before the draft begins.

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The plan here is to cover Round 1 from One Bills Drive in Orchard Park and, as always, we’ll discuss and dissect everything across the NFL.

Miss anything over the past month? Catch up below ahead of the picks. We’ve got plenty of stories ‘n pods to tide you over. Bob McGinn’s series is exclusive to our subscribers, which makes today a swell time for new readers to upgrade. Read what NFL scouts think about the prospects your team selects.

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Bob McGinn’s series:

Joe Brady Series:

Javon Bullard Feature:

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Before all festivities, Jim Monos and myself dinged the record button for one more pod ahead of the draft. Video and audio of that replay is above.

Where will Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love go? I wrote a column on the matter and get Monos’ thoughts as a longtime NFL scout. Also, we discuss the pros ‘n cons of this year’s wide receiver class. One scout was particularly scathing when it came to Jordan Tyson, a prospect who seems to have gained traction late. Monos weighs in. You’ll also want to hear my co-host’s analysis of KC Concepcion.

Mostly, we get into organizational structure and how the draft works inside a building.

Our audio sadly cut out when I shared an insane Jerry Jones story inside the draft room. Relive the surreal scene here.

One major takeaway from our first live show at Wayland? The wings are severely underrated.

Thanks to those who hung out on Substack Live remotely and everyone who made the trip locally.

Let’s keep the party going inside the chat all three days of the draft.

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By Bob McGinn

Here is my first and only listing of how I’m projecting the first 100 players to be selected Thursday and Friday in the NFL draft.

Players are listed from best to worst within each position group.

This also serves as my entry into The Huddle Report’s top 100 board contest. According to THR, these scores have become the standard by which draft publications, sites and media personnel are measured.

Since first entering the contest in 2009 my board has finished first five times (2011, 2012, 2013, 2019, 2022) and tied for second twice (2010, 2020). In terms of the current five-year average (2021-’25), mine ranks 11^th at 83.6.

This is the fifth time I’ve represented Tyler Dunne’s GoLongTD.com. There were 82 entrants last year when I tied for 54th with 81. The winning score was 87.

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OFFENSE (44)

Wide receivers (12): Carnell Tate, Ohio State; Makai Lemon, USC; Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State; Denzel Boston, Washington; KC Concepcion, Texas A&M; Chris Bell, Louisville; Omar Cooper, Indiana; Chris Brazzell, Tennessee; Zachariah Branch, Georgia; Antonio Williams, Clemson; Germie Bernard, Alabama; De’Zhaun Stribling, Mississippi.

Tight ends (3): Kenyon Sadiq, Oregon; Eli Stowers, Vanderbilt; Max Klare, Ohio State.

Tackles (12): Francis Mauigoa, Miami; Spencer Fano, Utah; Blake Miller, Clemson; Kadyn Proctor, Alabama; Monroe Freeling, Georgia; Caleb Lomu, Utah; Max Iheanachor, Arizona State; Austin Barber, Florida; Caleb Tiernan, Northwestern; Markel Bell, Miami; Dametrious Crownover, Texas A&M; Jude Bowry, Boston College.

Guards (6): Vega Ioane, Penn State; Chase Bisontis, Texas A&M; Emmanuel Pregnon, Oregon; Jalen Farmer, Kentucky; Gennings Dunker, Iowa; Keylan Rutledge, Georgia Tech.

Centers (2): Logan Jones, Iowa; Connor Lew, Auburn.

Quarterbacks (5): Fernando Mendoza, Indiana; Ty Simpson, Alabama; Taylen Green, Arkansas; Drew Allar, Penn State; Garrett Nussmeier, LSU.

Running backs (4): Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame; Jadarian Price, Notre Dame; Mike Washington, Arkansas; Kaytron Allen, Penn State.

DEFENSE (56)

Defensive line (10): Peter Woods, Clemson; Kayden McDonald, Ohio State; Christen Miller, Georgia; Lee Hunter, Texas Tech; Domonique Orange, Iowa State; Caleb Banks, Florida; Darrell Jackson, Florida State; Gracen Halton, Oklahoma; Chris McClellan, Missouri; Tyler Onyedim, Texas A&M.

Edge rushers (15): David Bailey, Texas Tech; Rueben Bain, Miami; Zion Young, Missouri; Ahkeem Mesidor, Miami; Keldric Faulk, Auburn; Cashius Howell, Texas A&M; T.J. Parker, Clemson; Dani Dennis-Sutton, Penn State; Joshua Josephs, Tennessee; R Mason Thomas, Oklahoma; Gabe Jacas, Illinois; Malachi Lawrence, UCF; L.T. Overton, Alabama; Keyron Crawford, Auburn; Jaishawn Barham, Michigan

Linebackers (10): Arvell Reese, Ohio State; Sonny Styles, Ohio State; CJ Allen, Georgia; Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech; Josiah Trotter, Missouri; Jake Golday, Cincinnati; Anthony Hill, Texas; Kyle Louis, Pittsburgh; Bryce Boettcher, Oregon; Kaleb Elarms-Orr, TCU.

Cornerbacks (12): Jermod McCoy, Tennessee; Mansoor Delane, LSU; Colton Hood, Tennessee; Brandon Cisse, South Carolina; Chris Johnson, San Diego State; D’Angelo Ponds, Indiana; Davison Igbinosun, Ohio State; Avieon Terrell, Clemson; Keionte Scott, Miami; Daylen Everette, Georgia; Tacario Davis, Washington; Keith Abney, Arizona State.

Safeties (9): Caleb Downs, Ohio State; Dillon Thieneman, Oregon; Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Toledo; Bud Clark, TCU; Kamari Ramsey, USC; Treydan Stukes, Arizona; Jalon Kilgore, South Carolina; A.J. Haulcy, LSU; VJ Payne, Kansas State.

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All links to Bob McGinn’s 42nd annual draft series for subscribers:

• Part 1, WR: Who’s the next star wideout?

• Part 2, TE: Kenyon Sadiq and the hunt for matchup nightmares

• Part 3, T: Why Francis Mauigoa ‘n co. may define the 2026 NFL Draft

• Part 4, G/C: Why this is the year to draft a center

• Part 5, QB: The Fernando Mendoza Question

• Part 6, RB: Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love? ‘The best NFL prospect in this draft

• Part 7, DL: Secure your space-eater

• Part 8, Edge: Deep 2026 class promises to torment quarterbacks

• Part 9, LB: How should an NFL team unleash Arvell Reese?

• Part 10, CB: McCoy? Delane? Hood? Inside the debate at the top...

• Part 11, S: Why Caleb Downs, a ‘slam dunk,’ is one of the best players in the NFL Draft

• Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

Starting Thursday night, the NFL will hold its annual humiliation of the NBA.

Keep your remote handy. The juxtaposition is high comedy.

At some point during Day 3 of the NFL Draft, cameras will pan toward a 58-year-old fan in face paint cheering on a cornerback from Stephen F. Austin they’ve never heard of in their lives. Maybe that player cracks the 53-man roster, maybe not. Either way, ratings will soar. An event that’s 90 percent theater, 10 percent substance by Saturday afternoon rules sports.

Meanwhile, in the association, playoff games have commenced. Stakes that should demand our undivided attention. Games may be close, but ratings will continue sputter. The next wave of stars will fail to register nationally. Worst of all, the owners (whoops, I mean governors) will fail to acknowledge the quality of their product itself has devolved. Most consumers do not enjoy seeing teams jack up 50 three-pointers a game.

Granted, I miss the good ‘ol days of Jets and Eagles fans mercilessly booing inside Radio City Music Hall, but there’s no denying that the draft has become a national sports holiday.

A holiday filled with hope.

Looking to objectively root for something this spring? Here you go.

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Safeties are almost never drafted at the top of an NFL draft. This position isn’t valued like edge rusher, left tackle, wide receiver, etc.

In the last six decades, only 16 have gone in the first 10 picks and only five of those have been selected in the top 5. It hasn’t even happened in 16 years. Those players? Kenny Easley (No. 4 overall, 1981), Bennie Blades (No. 3, 1988), Eric Turner (No. 2, 1991), Sean Taylor (No. 5, 2004) and Eric Berry (No. 5, 2010).

Then again, two of the sport’s finest football minds ever — Bill Belichick and Nick Saban — were behind that safety going second overall in ‘91.

Then again, Caleb Downs is far more than a “safety.”

Watch any Ohio State game and you’ll see No. 2 striking defenders, making plays on the ball, closing fast from all contours of the field. Defensive coordinator Matt Patricia deployed the All-American everywhere. In a class full of question marks, Downs is a sure thing. The 5-foot-11 1/2, 207-pounder from Hoschton, Ga., also has genetics on his side.

His father, Gary, was a third-round pick in 1994. He played running back in the NFL for six seasons.

His uncle on Mom’s side is also longtime NFL cornerback Dre’ Bly. The two-time Pro Bowler won a Super Bowl as a rookie with the St. Louis Rams in 1999, reached another Super Bowl in 2001 and finished his career with 43 interceptions, 20 forced fumbles and 150 PBUs. Now, he’s a coach. Bly is currently an assistant coach with the South Carolina Gamecocks.

He’s known Downs forever. He played with and against Canton-bound talents. He’s seen today’s NFL players up close as an assistant coach with the Saints, Dolphins, Lions and Jets.

How will Caleb Downs translate to the pros? This past week, I caught up with Bly on the phone. Our convo is transcribed below.

We get into his game, his smarts, his future.

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You can give us the best perspective on what really makes Caleb possibly the best player in the entire draft. What makes him special?

Bly: He is. He is. And here’s the thing — the way I look at it — because I’ve been hearing some of the hoopla. He didn’t work out. People are questioning his speed. When you play as well as he played, you don’t need to work out. His film represents what he is. He’s done everything you can imagine as a college football player. The same way Travis Hunter didn’t need to work out, Caleb Downs doesn’t need to work out. And so again, if you know what you’re looking at when you evaluate tape, then if you go back and evaluate all his tapes since he started playing football, you’ll see the same human being on the football field. He’s the best player that’s on the field. And so you see correctly. That’s who he is.

On the flip side of it, the family that he comes from, he’s super intelligent, he’s super smart. That’s what people don’t really know. All of our family is super smart, 4.0 GPAs. My wife and I both went to Chapel Hill. His Mom and Dad both went to NC State. My wife’s brother went to NC State. He’s an attorney. So my wife, brother and sister both went to NC State and my wife went to Chapel Hill. Their parents worked for IBM for 30+ years and my mother-in-law went to private school as a kid. My father-in-law was really, really smart. So that was the standard in the house. So all of our kids had really, really good grades. They all went to college. They all graduated with almost 4.0 GPAs. And so that’s the other side of the story that people don’t know. And then you combine that with Gary and his family. Gary is a military baby. And so his work ethic is different. His faith — Gary’s a strong believer — is different. So all that’s poured into Caleb.

And then with him growing up in a super competitive family, Caleb was the Last of the Mohicans. My son, I’ve got a 17-year-old. Caleb and my son are the two youngest boys. And so Caleb had a chance to see everybody else. He got the best of everybody. Growing up in an athletic family, he’s always been the best player on the field. The other thing when people don’t realize— I don’t think a lot of kids do enough of — our kids played multiple sports. Caleb played baseball, he played basketball. And so all of those skillsets that he learned from playing those other sports, he applied them out there on the football field.

If you watch and dissect how fast he played on the football field, why do you need him to work out? He’s the real deal, man. He’s everything that people imagine. He’s more athletic than any other defensive player in the game. His instincts, his awareness, his smarts. They’re going to get every bit of the player they’re supposed to get when they draft him as a top 10 player. And that’s a multiple Pro Bowl type of player that has the ability to be a Hall of Fame player. I don’t expect anything less or anything different coming out of Caleb.

He surpassed everything that I’ve done and I’m in the College Football Hall of Fame. And he’ll one day be in the College Football Hall of Fame. He won the Thorpe Award. I went 0-for-2 with the Thorpe. I was the finalist twice. Didn’t win that. He won the national championship. He won a state championship in high school. So this guy has always won. He’s always been the best player on the field on a really, really good team. And so now they’re going to get one hand of a ball player once you hear his name called in a couple weeks.

You don’t even need to look at a highlight reel. You can pull up a full 60-minute game to understand his impact. Usually a safety makes a play here, a play there. But Caleb Downs is in the camera shot all game long. I’ve got to think that speaks to that intelligence. So even at an early age, in what ways did you see his smarts?

Bly: At nine years old, he was the most dominant player on the football field. So his football IQ — the plays he was able to make at nine years. The vision. The awareness. You can see that at an early age. He was doing things at 10 years old that grown folks don’t do. How do you know that he’s every bit of the player that we think he is? Well, he’s the quarterback on the football field. He talks to everybody. He gets everybody lined up. He communicates. You don’t see a lot of players in the generation communicating and doing some of those things. He’s cut from the old school. You see us 30 years ago, that’s the way we operate, that’s the way we move. And so you see some of that, man.

But then some of the players, people were questioning: “Why do we draft a safety that high?” Because he makes everybody around him better. He has the ability to intercept six balls. He has the ability to have 100 tackles. He has the ability to get you six, seven sacks. He has the ability to cause five, six fumbles. That’s the thing that separates him from the majority of the other defensive players in the draft. And I’m here to tell you, it’s all legit, man. I’m a guy that played four sports growing up. I was a guy that made plays all over the field from high school to college to the NFL. And one of the things that separated me from the rest of the guys I played with were my ball skills and my awareness and my instincts. He’s cut from that cloth. And so that was something you could see at an early age. He stood out on the field whenever he stepped in the field.

He was always the best player on any field he stepped on. And everybody said that. Even when they were recruiting him out of high school. I’ve been around significant football minds and guys that have been doing it for a long time. They said, “Dre, he’s the best football player that we’ve recruited in the last 30 years.”

Really?

Bly: Yeah. People say that. I don’t think they were just saying that to blow smoke because he was my nephew. Nah, when you’ve been around this game as long as you’ve been around the game, you see it. And you’ve got to believe what you see and don’t try to convince yourself that it’s something else because it’s not. And this is what happens when you’re dealing with analytics and these so-called “gurus” that think they understand the game. Well, shit, he didn’t work out. He didn’t run. He didn’t need to work out! If you dissect him — and understand what you see on tape — you see that he’s the fastest football player that laces those cleats up on Saturdays. So you don’t need to time him when he runs the 40.

And here’s the other thing. When I came out, I ran 4.48, 4.51. People said Dre’ Bly was timed in the 4.5 in the 40. Well, I had 43 career picks, caused 20 fumbles, had 150 breakups in the NFL. And then in college, I had 22 interceptions in three years. I made a lot of plays. And in high school, I had 14, 15 picks. I made a lot of plays. I didn’t need to be a 4.3. It was my instincts and my awareness and my savviness, ball savviness. That’s what allowed me to be the player that I was.

Caleb reminds me of that type of player. Super instinctive. He’s super aware. He’s super smart, which allow him to play faster than any other football player on the field.

In your era, you played against safeties who are in Canton. Obviously you’re blood, but at the same time, the film speaks for itself. Do you think that he’s got a game that rivals anybody?

Bly: He does. He does. Even coaching now and being around some of the athletes I’m around, if my nephew stays healthy, he has a chance to be really, really special because he checks all the boxes. He’s physical. His size, his instincts. His ability to tackle in the open field. You put him in any environment, he makes players around him better. It’s hard to pinpoint one particular person, but I see a mixture of Brian Dawkins. He’s pigeon-toed like Ed Reed with how he runs. And to sit here and say that you’re going to have as many interceptions as Ed Reed, that’s hard to say. But Ed Reed, it’s like Kobe Bryant. When you’re hot, you’re hot. It’s like when I had 13 interceptions my freshman year of college. I can’t duplicate that. I was hot that year. He’s going to make a lot of great football plays. He’s going to be in position to make a lot of plays. He’s going to make those plays. Whatever defense he lands on, he’s going to make that defense better. And if he stays healthy — which you can’t predict. You hope that every player that gets drafted can play 16, 17 games a year. But ability-wise, I know he’s different. He’s special. There haven’t been a lot of guys that’ve come up the way this man has come up and done the things that he’s done. He’s done more than me, and he’s going to be a damn good pro.

It sounds like he’s made of the right stuff. Eats, sleeps, breathes this sport. And that’s saying something today. You’re working through it right now in college. You’ve got to figure out who loves this sport. It’s not as guaranteed as it might’ve been back in your day. What does it look like up close with Caleb, being an old soul who genuinely loves it?

Bly: He is an old soul. My wife and his mom are sisters. She calls him “Dusty.” They say he’s an old soul. He eats and breaths and sleeps football. And that’s how our family is. Anything they set their mind to, they’re going to be all-in. There’s not a defensive system that he can’t understand, retain, learn. He’s super smart, super intelligent. And to me, if you have that intangible along with the skill-set, it’s going to be hard to be defeated. He’s the complete package. But yeah, everything that he does, he’s a hard worker. He’s as clean as it gets when it comes to an athlete. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He trains all day, every day. He’s a Christian. He was raised correctly. Everybody around him — his uncles, aunts, they’re all married. His parents, his grandparents. He’s the complete package, man. And so everything that you’ve seen is a representation of how he was raised and what’s been around him. And I would say my brother- and sister-in-law have done a hell of a job with Caleb, and we’re super excited to see the flowers that he received from all the hard work that he’s put in.

The New York Giants make a lot of sense with what John Harbaugh is trying to instill. If I’m John Harbaugh, I’m thinking this is Kyle Hamilton+ because Caleb isn’t only a safety. You put him anywhere — slot, corner, linebacker. Man, that would make a lot of sense.

Bly: It would. That’s how the Ravens utilized Kyle Hamilton. And I’m cut from that cloth and Coach Harbaugh is, too. Defense wins championships. And when you’re drafting a player that high, you need instant impact. That’s what Caleb represents every time he steps on the field. If you go back and do your background, that’s who he’s been every single time he stepped on the field. It’s not like he surprised you one year. No, every time he stepped in the field, he’s been the best player. And he’s made everybody around him better. And then he fits the mold of being a top five, top six pick, a first-round draft pick to fit in the city of New York. He is what you want your first-round pick to represent. He’s going to do everything he’s supposed to do. And I’d be willing to bet everything. He’s not going to disappoint when it comes to the off the field because of how he was raised and how he moves and how he operates. And so hopefully he’s there. I’m saying hopefully because his dad was drafted with the Giants. So that would be a great story if the Giants drafted him after drafting his dad almost 30 something years ago.

So we’ll see, man. I’m rooting for him. I will be there with him in Pittsburgh. I’ll be there with him in the green room, and I’m looking forward to celebrating whichever team selects my nephew.

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Be sure to see what NFL scouts told Bob McGinn in his series about Caleb Downs.

Miss any of McGinn’s 42nd annual NFL Draft series? All posts are right here for paid subscribers:

• Part 1, WR: Who’s the next star wideout?

• Part 2, TE: Kenyon Sadiq and the hunt for matchup nightmares

• Part 3, T: Why Francis Mauigoa ‘n co. may define the 2026 NFL Draft

• Part 4, G/C: Why this is the year to draft a center

• Part 5, QB: The Fernando Mendoza Question

• Part 6, RB: Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love? ‘The best NFL prospect in this draft

• Part 7, DL: Secure your space-eater

• Part 8, Edge: Deep 2026 class promises to torment quarterbacks

• Part 9, LB: How should an NFL team unleash Arvell Reese?

• Part 10, CB: McCoy? Delane? Hood? Inside the debate at the top...

• Part 11, S: Why Caleb Downs, a ‘slam dunk,’ is one of the best players in the NFL Draft

• Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

ICYMI:

Two-part series on new Buffalo Bills head coach Joe Brady…

• Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

• Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

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The Cincinnati Bengals need to fix the league’s saddest defense. Dexter Lawrence could be the piece that gets this team back into the Super Bowl, on the heels of strong free-agent signings. For a team trying to win now, he offers more value than a raw prospect in a draft lacking star power.

The New York Giants have a chance to create a team in John Harbaugh’s vision. At No. 5 and No. 10 overall, they can infuse a better-than-most-think roster with two promising pieces.

Harbaugh was the top candidate on the market. How soon can he work his magic?

Exactly one year ago, I chatted with comedian of the excellent Podcast.

Let’s just say Joe’s mood has changed. Significantly. He’s feeling damn good about these Giants.

We get into Brian Daboll’s (unfortunate) coaching shift, Joe Schoen’s roster construction, Jaxson Dart’s ceiling and everything else.

Video and audio are above, and you can also subscribe to the Go Long channels on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. And be sure to make Joe’s “Dirty Sports” part of the podcast rotation. Both Joe and bring a perfect flair of insight and entertainment. Loved popping on their show earlier this offseason.

New here? As always, we’d love it if you decided to join our community today as a paid subscriber. Keep it plugged into Go Long for full coverage of the 2026 NFL Draft.

If you live in Western New York, join us at Wayland Brewing Company in Orchard Park, NY any time after 5 p.m. (EST) for a night of beer and football.

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Happy NFL Draft Week! Cannot wait to see Western New Yorkers out at Wayland Brewing Company this Wednesday evening for a night of poddin,’ beers and football. (Imagine we’ll have a Sabre goal or two to discuss, too. Holy hell. What a Game 1.)

I’ll also have a running live chat all three days of the draft so we can all hang out virtually.

Miss our two-parter on new Buffalo Bills head coach Joe Brady? Here it is in full below.

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Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

ORCHARD PARK, NY — Staring down, he taps his foot on the hard carpet underneath his soles. There’s no cushion, no give at all. The sight of something so dull transports Joe Brady back in time. All the way back to Jan. 6, 2013. He was a college senior with exactly zero coaching prospects at the national coaching convention in Nashville.

He was also exceptionally naïve.

Brady knew that his buddy, DJ Mangas, had a hotel room at the convention’s Gaylord Opryland resort and figured he was good to go. The two were college teammates at William & Mary and Mangas, now coaching at D-III Hampden-Sydney, assured Brady he could tag along. Surely, this meant two beds for two guests. Yet when he showed up, Brady realized there were three Hampden-Sydney coaches bunking in this room.

He was the outsider.

There were no blankets to spare. Mangas threw him a pillow.

Brady taps his foot again.

“I was literally on this,” he says.

Somehow, Brady was more distressed during the day than at night. In his mind? Landing a full-time job was a slam dunk at this monstrous convention. Brady had two boxes of business cards printed up and Brady was already emailing his cover letter and resume to coaches coast to coast. He was the overzealous job seeker initiating conversation with everyone. In his mind? It’d only take one. Just one coach amongst the hundreds of D-I, D-II and D-III coaches in attendance to believe.

“Basically doing what the high school kid does with his highlight tape,” Brady says. “Will anybody give me an opp?”

Uh, no.

All cards, all resumes were treated with the tender love and care of junk mail and those annoying fliers pinned underneath a windshield.

He left town thinking he may never coach.

“It was depressing,” Brady says.

Thirteen years later, he landed the most prestigious sports job on the market. The college kid who just might’ve sold his soul to work 100 hours a week as a graduate assistant for Timbuktu Tech is the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills. Nine coaches in all interviewed for the position — Terry Pegula, Brandon Beane and the Bills brass chose the man in their building with zero head-coaching experience on that updated resume. Brady inherits a perennial title contender piloted by an MVP quarterback. A future Hall of Fame quarterback. He was hired to accomplish exactly what his predecessor could not.

Get to a Super Bowl. Win a Super Bowl.

How does he handle this pressure? He points to those three nights in Tennessee.

“By remembering,” he says, “that I slept on a floor in a hotel room.”

He thinks back to defying his coaches as the sixth wide receiver on the high school depth chart. It got him to college. He thinks back to teaching himself how to write scouting reports in ‘13. It got him his first job. He thinks back to how his relationship with quarterback Josh Allen first bloomed. A partnership was born.

“Don’t change who you are just because you got another opportunity,” he continues. “I work with the same mindset.”

That’s a man who walked into the building this morning wearing shorts. It was 15 degrees and snowing. Tall ‘n pale ‘n perpetually bounding room to room on the strength of far too many energy drinks, it doesn’t appear as if his eyebrows have ever tilted in 45-degree rage. Don’t let kindness fool you. In the cutthroat terrain of pro football, Joe Brady has always been a carnivore who seizes the moment. Everyone may think they know the man who’s been calling plays for 2 ½ seasons. Fans love nothing more than the mysterious unknown and Brady — by a landslide — was the most known candidate interviewing to replace Sean McDermott. News of his hiring was initially treated by locals like receiving a new pair of socks on Christmas morning. Well, if those socks were first soaked in the old stadium’s urinal trough on a hot summer day.

There’s always been more to this coach than the wide receiver screen you hate or hook and ladder you love.

Who is Joe Brady?

He’s hesitant to answer, describing himself as a “close-to-the-vest guy.” An introvert. Until one story flows to the next, and the next, and the next, and two hours pass. A portrait sharpens this conversation with Go Long. He’d go even longer if not for his assistant texting that he’s due for a meeting. Time will tell if a total reset was needed. One fact is indisputable. This 36-year-old from South Florida is a striking contrast from the man he’ll replace precisely where it matters for this team at this time. Presented with an opportunity, he does not vacillate and overanalyze until that opportunity passes him by.

Brady attacks.

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His press conferences will likely meander. Brady jokingly crowns himself the worst person to ever speak at a podium because his only goal in that setting is to protect his players.

“I’ll take the blame. I’ll eat it. I’ll praise when it’s good and, when it’s bad, I’ll take it,” Brady says. “But with my guys, I curse a lot. I’m passionate. There is an edge to me that I choose not to show to the outside world.”

That edge is the real story.

An intense confidence rooted in what nobody sees.

“I know how hard I work, how hard the coaching staff works, how hard the players work,” Brady says. “You need an edge going into that game. I’ll set my jaw. I want everybody to know that we’re going to try to make it a game they don’t want to play. I need that persona, that mindset. It’s not fake. It’s who I am.”

Hesitate for one second in high school, in college, in the pros and Brady knows for damn sure he isn’t sitting right here.

He starts the only place he can. The good ‘ol days of youth sports when Dad coached him in everything.

“Man,” Brady begins, “he was hard as hell on me.”

Joe Brady III routinely threw Joe Brady IV out of games, benched him, punished him and… yeah. It was warranted. Son was a ticking time bomb. Son admits his temper ran boiling hot because, plainly, he despised losing. Thinking back, he’s not sure parents even deploy this form of discipline anymore. But if he threw his bat in a baseball game, Brady was told to sit down and write six words repeatedly. I will not throw my bat. I will not throw my bat. I will not throw my bat. A real-life Bart Simpson in detention.

Drives home from practices and games were always contentious.

One baseball season, Brady vividly remembers hoping someone other than his own father drafted him.

Switching back ‘n forth between different sports got tiresome, so he admits his mindset “probably sucked.”

He gives Dad a hard time but relives all of this with immense reverence. Today, Brady hopes he’s home in time for his son’s bedtime routine when he knows his own father was back to throw a ball around every single day. All Joe III wanted for Joe IV is the father-son relationship he never had — and the football future he let slip way. Dad was a star running back in high school, briefly enrolled at Clemson and it didn’t last long. He planned on transferring to Florida State, to walk onto Bobby Bowden’s team, but those plans fizzled. Son only says that Dad “was a knucklehead idiot.” In sum, he didn’t have parents instructing him to suck it up through hard times.

He quit. A lifelong regret.

Eventually, Dad ran his own company but he made a point to tell Joe that if he ended up working for him at Brady Fire Equipment, then he failed as a parent. He pushed him.

Adds Brady: “He wanted me to do more.”

Day-to-day pressure that presented a young Joe Brady with a choice. He could repel, rebel, refuse such a life.

Instead, the two became exceptionally close. Brady knew his father’s heart was in the right place.

South Florida was the perfect sports breeding ground, too. This is where dreams become reality. Thinking back, one reason Brady believes he relates to players and coaches from all backgrounds today is geography. Outside of baseball tournaments in Cooperstown and North Carolina, he never left the state. All while sports constituted his entire life. His grandfather was an original season ticketholder for the Miami Dolphins. The Joes must’ve talked about something other than sports at some point in life, but nothing comes to mind.

To this day, Dad is his most trusted consigliere.

Never matters what time it is. Brady calls him after every practice. If the Bills face the New York Jets that week, they dissect the defense. Joe II isn’t afraid to offer a suggestion or two. Back when Brady was the offensive coordinator at LSU, Dad drew up a triple-option play on the board he thought his son should implement. The ball is handed off to a running back and that running back reads the defensive end. He can either keep it or pitch it back to the quarterback.

Son politely informed his father that LSU’s quarterback was Joe Burrow. Two simple words then had him fuming.

Son dismissed such a design as… “old school.”

“Man,” says Brady, shaking his head, “that pissed him off.”

That fall, naturally, Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley ran this exact play with quarterback Kyler Murray and Dad texted the video to his son quickly as his thumbs permitted. Old school, huh? Joe IV reminded him that Burrow and Murray are quite different. But later, as the Buffalo Bills’ playcaller this past season, you guessed it, Brady had running back Ty Johnson leading quarterback Josh Allen through the hole in a game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dad brought it up again.

“He’ll be wrong,” Brady says, “but I don’t know if he’ll admit when he’s wrong.”

The same day the Bills smashed those Steelers, 220 miles away, Brady’s wife gave birth to a baby girl.

He missed it all.

He wants to be a present father to his two kids. It won’t be easy as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.

Quarterback was the position he played his entire life. Quarterback was his destiny. In another lifetime, Joe Brady and Geno Smith engage in 48-45 shootouts galore in South Florida. The two attended rival high schools. Those dreams, however, were swiftly dashed ahead of Brady’s freshman year.

Don’t pan your pregame binoculars toward Brady expecting to see whistling fastballs delivered between the numbers of receivers. To this day, he struggles to throw a football. That’s because during a camp at St. Thomas Aquinas, Brady threw out his shoulder. “Dead arm,” he calls it. He paid the price for throwing with all arm — no lower body torque at all — in both football and baseball.

This injury also served as the first major tipping point in his football life.

Brady switched to wide receiver. (“My Dad was just so pissed. You know, here’s this tall, goofy kid: ‘You’re not going to be a wideout.’”) On the JV team, Brady scored touchdowns on his first eight receptions. (Dad was now all-in.) Moving up to the varsity team, there was only one problem. Into his junior year, during a camp in Orlando, a coach called for five wides and didn’t mention his name. The coaches at Everglades High School did not view Brady as one of the five best receivers on his own team. “This is not good,” Brady told himself.

He didn’t transfer, instead choosing to stay ready.

The first drive of the first game that 2006 season — against local power Chaminade–Madonna — one receiver suffered an injury. And before a coach on the sideline even called the name for a replacement, Joe Brady rushed onto the field. Didn’t think twice. Didn’t care. All animalistic instinct told him to go. First play, the quarterback threw him a hitch for eight yards. Brady stayed in the game. Brady caught another pass, then another, and led his team in receiving this 34-13 defeat.

Yes, on the sideline, he was chastised for insubordination.

Yes, he was sent right back to the bottom of the depth chart into Week 2.

He proved a point, too.

That week, Brady was eating a bowl of pasta and meatballs when a coach informed him he’d be starting because a handful of his teammates got in trouble. He scored a touchdown in a 14-7 win over Nova, again led Everglades in receiving and — suddenly — the name Joe Brady ranked near the top of receiving stats in talent-rich Broward County.

Division I football became a realistic destination. He was even asked to do an interview on Miami television.

After fielding questions from a local station, walking back, Brady’s hamstring and glute felt tight. He didn’t think it was a big deal. Brady tried to practice and informed his coach he couldn’t even move. He underwent testing at the hospital, was sent home and nobody was too concerned. The next morning, he tried to get out of bed and fell. He couldn’t even stand on that leg. More testing revealed that Brady needed to be transported to the children’s hospital. ASAP. He had a staph infection, MRSA, and it had gotten into his bloodstream.

On the drive, he asked a paramedic if this was bad. The gentleman did exactly nothing to quell his fears. “There’s a chance you can lose your leg,” he deadpanned.

Brady freaked out, understandably.

“Wait, what?!” he replied. Don’t tell me that!’”

Here at Bills HQ, he points through the window toward a nearby car. Walking that short distance, about 20 feet, would take him 15 agonizing minutes. Nobody knows what caused the infection.

From the hospital that Friday night, he watched his own interview on TV.

Then, the game.

It was heartbreaking.

“For me, I had football,” Brady says. “I was so proud of staying with it, staying locked with it, finally getting an opportunity to go, staying ready when my time came. I was ready. And then finally when I was able to get the opportunity, it was taken away.”

He spent two full weeks in the hospital and lost close to 15 pounds. But with loss, came a totally new perspective on life: Appreciation. One sprint onto the field led to one ball thrown his direction and a sliver of success. Brady realized right then just how much he loved football. Needed football. So he quit baseball altogether to pour all focus, all attention into excelling on the gridiron at Everglades.

“A huge moment in my career,” Brady says, “that is so small.”

One school took notice: the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. On his visit, Brady watched highlights of future NFL assistant coach Chad Hall tearing up Notre Dame for 142 yards on 32 carries. Head coach Troy Calhoun had just taken over after coordinating the Houston Texans offense and made it seem as if the Falcons were modernizing into a pro-style offense that’d allow him to flourish out wide.

Brady chose the Air Force and, soon enough, was doing running back drills himself.

He also had broken his wrist in a high school all-star game before stepping foot on campus. Brady didn’t tell anybody because he figured he could tough this out. His first scrimmage with the Falcons, he broke it again and needed surgery.

Football — again — was snatched from him. Only, this time, there was no kicking his feet up on a hospital bed. Brady continued to push his body through hell as a cadet in basic training. He admits he didn’t exactly do his research on day-to-day life at the Air Force. Brady didn’t even eat the first three days of basic training because he didn’t know how to properly ask for food.

Fun was limited. Military life is not the normal freshman college experience.

“But I wish everybody would have to go through a basic training,” Brady says. “When you go from being an 18-year-old to being on your own, and you can’t think for the next eight weeks, it breaks you a little bit. So much of who I am was a product of my upbringing and then the rebranding once I went to the academy.”

If football was going to stay central to his life, though, another aggressive move on the chess board was required. ASAP. One member of Brady’s squadron had the same football aspirations as him, suffered an injury, then never sniffed the field again. A cadet who now attended the Air Force for military purposes only. It spooked Brady. He was here for one reason — football — and feared future recruiting waves would wash him away, too. So, he decided to transfer.

Dad was livid. Dad saw his own life repeating in his son. “Like, ‘Oh my God, this is my life. I can’t F up my son’s life in the same moment,’” Brady recalls. But if there’s a theme to his rise, it’s the melodic blend of hardship and instinctual conviction.

With Dad’s assistance — perhaps too much assistance, he jokes — Brady transitioned to William & Mary.

Leaning back, Brady cannot help but crack a smile and laugh. He did not suddenly live happily ever after.

One week into spring ball under Jimmye Laycock at this FCS school, he broke his foot running a route… against air. Because of course he did. Brady knows how this all sounds and agrees he was an injury-riddled mess. Initially, he thought this was only a sprained ankle. As the new guy going full Rudy Ruettiger to make an impression on the staff, no way was Brady reporting this injury to the training staff. Fresh off that broken wrist, he didn’t want anyone thinking he was brittle. He played doctor. He treated himself. Inside his dorm room, Brady Googled various remedies and learned all about RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) in a slapdash attempt to fix himself.

Soon, Brady had no choice but to seek help.

He spent all of spring ball in a walking boot.

The good news? Brady never suffered another injury. Bad news? Brady barely sniffed the field. His name was never invoked by coaches for dynamite plays to be deployed on Saturdays. Rather, a hint of disdain on the scout team. When William & Mary prepared to face the ACC’s North Carolina Tar Heels, Brady snatched an in-breaking route and defensive coordinator Bob Shoop lost his mind. Brady imitates Shoop’s scratchy voice here to a T. “Repeat the play!” the coach shouted. “If Joe Braaaaa-deee is catching balls on us, what do you think North Carolina’s going to do?!”

Says Brady: “I was like, ‘Damn, Shoop!’”

NFL ball was not an option. Sorry, pops.

In four seasons with the Tribe, he caught all of three passes for 34 yards.

“Balling,” he says. “I can name all those catches.”

When Brady thought he’d finally get a shot at substantive offensive snaps, into his junior year, William & Mary brought in a wide receiver who was clearly more talented: Tre McBride. Rather than treat McBride as a dragon to slay or toil in self-pity, Brady (again) manufactured an opportunity. He genuinely tried to coach up a kid out to render him obsolete. McBride was skeptical. At first, he couldn’t trust a teammate who was this helpful, this generous. But for Brady, the relationship was an awakening. He understood exactly how to run routes — releases off the line, stems at the top of routes, etc. — but physically could not do it.

Now, in a way, he could play vicariously through a 6-foot, 210-pound weapon from McDonough, Ga. McBride heeded every morsel of advice, took Brady’s spot, and blossomed into one of the school’s best offensive players ever. After catching 64 passes for 809 yards with four scores, he was drafted by the Tennessee Titans and kicked around the league for five teams.

Too often, Brady would get knocked off a route, ask “What should I do differently?” and simply hear a coach tell him to do something different.

He embraced life teaching the why. This was a calling.

“The moment,” Brady says, “I was like, ‘Alright, I need to coach.’”

Of course, Brady was also a double major at William & Mary, the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States next to Harvard. This school’s been around since 1693. Undergrads don’t kill themselves over midterms and dissertations here to become a coach. They’re seeking six- and seven-figure jobs at Fortune 500 companies, not shameless QC gigs demanding 100 hours a week for humiliating pay. Sane third parties on campus — professors, classmates, etc. — considered this a harebrained master plan.

“Like, what a waste of education,” Brady says. “And I don’t mean that in a negative way. But you don’t go to William & Mary to be like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go be a coach now.’ I could have just done that anywhere.”

Yet, he craved the sport’s entry-level serfdom and all insomnia, all microwavable dinners that came with it.

Which brings us back to that concrete-soft carpet.

He’s one of 32 head coaches. Elite company. The face of an organization. But if this was Joe the Janitor or Joey Ticket Sales, there’s a good chance a member of the Buffalo Bills’ security staff would stop this employee in his tracks on the walkway to ask a.) why he’s up at 3:20 a.m.; and b.) why he’s wearing shorts in freezing temps.

This is no performance for social media. It’s who Joe Brady’s always been. Ask any player inside this Buffalo Bills locker room about Brady and they’ll inevitably cite his magnetic energy. How he’s a relentless tidal wave of positivity.

For a team led by the same man the last nine years, it’s severely needed. And natural.

I ask Brady where this all comes from, and he points to this all being an innate passion.

“When people are around me,” he says, “I think they can feel that. I’m not trying to be energetic. I’m not trying to be a hoo-rah guy. I’m trying to be myself. But people can feel that. I’m getting to live my dreams and do exactly what I want to do and, honestly, where I want to do it. That makes it easy. You get to come to work and it’s not like I have to be like, ‘Ugh. Here we go. I’m going to have to put on a show today.’ Yeah, I drink a lot of caffeine, but there’s no fake…”

A lot of caffeine, as in… how much today exactly? Well, Brady needed to get his blood drawn so it’s been a mild morning. An espresso, caffeine gum and, finally, Gatorade Fast Twitch No. 1 are powering him through. The caffeine element of this energy drink beverage is real — each bottle contains 200 mg of caffeine. He’ll typically drink three or four per day. And two Espresso’s. And two MEG Caffeine Gum pieces.

That’s the offseason.

During the season, those numbers all go up.

Brady does replenish his system with ample H2O, and the team nutritionist assures he’s got nothing to worry about. The same probably cannot be said for the coach calling himself “C12” in Foxborough.

Moments later, he’s still thinking about that “energy” question and pinpoints a day he’ll never forget — Jan. 6, 2013 — because it was the same day rookie Robert Griffin Jr. tore up his knee in the NFC wild card. His buddy, DJ Mangas, grew up a diehard Washington Redskins fan and they watched this game on at TV at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville on Day 1 of that American Football Coach Association (AFCA) convention.

Those fruitless three days were the turning point of his entire life.

Mangas, a year older, was already coaching quarterbacks at D-III Hampden-Sydney. Brady toted a bag of nice clothes, business cards and a notebook with the expectation, teetering on a full-fledged guarantee, that he’d land a job of his own in this psychotic world of coaching. Upon arrival, he realized he wouldn’t even have his own bed. Two of Mangas’ fellow coaches packed in the room, too.

Hampden-Sydney DC Wes Dodson had booked the room for himself, Mangas and fellow assistant Ahmaad Smith.

The convention rotates to a new city each year. Many speeches are given. Notepad in hand, Brady took copious amounts of notes. (Still has those notes, too.) He remembers Shannon Dawson, West Virginia’s offensive coordinator, discussing wide receiver technique. The previous year, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey tore up the Big 12. A coach from North Dakota State, Craig Bohl, was honored as the FCS Coach of the Year. At one point, the ex-William & Mary DC Shoop took a crew to a nice breakfast spot. He now coached at nearby Vanderbilt.

Wisdom was shared by all. Brady was a sponge.

Brady was also here with one goal in mind: Get a damn job.

He received a tinge of interest from FCS Marist and D-II Findlay (Ohio) before both admitted they couldn’t seriously consider him because he was still in school.

Room to room, Brady encountered mobs of young coaches gunning for jobs and promotions — a humbling reminder that he was not alone. Any 23-year-old seeking a job can feel like a guppy lost in a sea of candidates. Schools and schools of coaches swim into the same speeches… engage in the same small talk… take the same notes. An intimidating scene. Those pre-NIL days, stacks of cash weren’t piled in the coffers. “Analyst” positions weren’t concocted out of thin air. Colleges had a finite number of positions available.

“Oh my goodness,” says Dodson, now the head coach at D-III LaGrange. “There’s just so many people. That’s what people don’t understand. The coaching profession is not easy to get into because there’s more coaches than there are jobs.”

Dodson remembers booking the room. Details are hazy. He, too, had slept on his share of floors and chairs over the years. But even though he had coached at William & Mary himself in the past and his stepson played at the school, Dodson never met Brady before. Never even spoke to him before the kid showed up.

Brady’s energy stood out. He was “on the run” nonstop.

To this day, with pride, Dodson tells colleagues: “Joe Brady slept on my floor.”

“You can tell people that are always willing to just go and talk to people — they’re going to make something of themselves,” Dodson says. “They’re not afraid to go get something if they want it. That’s what you do as a young coach. Any way you can find a room to sleep in, you find a way. And that’s what he’s done. He found a way.”

Still, in the moment, the trip felt like one gigantic swing and miss. Nobody at this de facto job fair understood the Real Joe Brady. Upon landing back to Williamsburg, Va., he could’ve pivoted and put his education to use. Coaches across America most certainly threw his business cards into the trash. He only received a handful of automatic replies on email. Three collegiate receptions at a small school don’t exactly send a bat signal. Everyone in life must come to grips with football passing them by. It’s sad.

Yet, Brady did not bail. Brady refused to stay discouraged for long. Much like a 17-year-old quarterback on the other side of the country, in Firebaugh, Calif., reaching out to every Division I football coach he possibly could and hearing nothing back this same year.

He took a deep breath and looked around. The Tribe hired a new OC in Kevin Rogers this spring. Brady viewed this as another chance to learn. The longtime coach had Donovan McNabb at Syracuse and Brett Favre with the Minnesota Vikings. Brady loitered around Rogers’ office as much possible, soaking up as much knowledge as he could. Right around then, one of the Tribe’s assistant coaches on defense, John Bowes, took a new job at Fordham.

Brady walked into Laycock’s office to say he wanted a job. “He laughed at me,” Brady recalls, “and told me to get the hell out of his office. ‘Beat it geek,’ in so many words.” It wasn’t personal. Laycock explained to his backup wide receiver that this isn’t something he does. Never before had Laycock hired one of his players directly to the staff.

“Well,” Brady told him, “I’d be a great first.’”

Brady kept hanging around… hanging around… and chipped in with spring ball.

The reason Laycock shunned his own players fresh off the graduation stage is that he didn’t want assistants coaching their buddies. He believed in a healthy separation between church and state. There’s a first for everything. Both DC Scott Boone and D-Line coach Trevor Andrews thought Brady had potential. Put him on defense, they told Laycock, and he would be with a totally different crew. Boone saw a promising “football junkie.” The head coach started warming up to the idea and, as graduation loomed, informed Brady that he was bringing in three coaches to essentially audition for a linebackers position. He’d be one of the candidates.

At some point, Laycock would then decide who gets the job.

He told Brady to get the heck out of dodge after graduating. Relax. Recharge his batteries.

Yeah, right. No chance was Brady going to decelerate now.

All coaches on staff hit the recruiting trail and Brady stayed right inside the football offices preparing for his one shot. He studied the Tribe’s playbook to biblical proportions, teaching himself defensive football. He looked ahead, too. Brady authored detailed scouting reports on every single one of William & Mary’s 2013 opponents. He knew diddly poo about playing linebacker, but Brady applied what he did know — offense — to each report. The Tribe’s first opponent was West Virginia. The year prior, his old high school foe in Miramar, Fla. (Geno Smith) lit up defenses. He explained how the Mountaineers incinerated defenses.

Brady knows himself, too. He would’ve gone insane back home in waiting mode.

All instinct told him to stay right there inside those offices and teach himself how to break down tape.

“So when those coaches came back, everything was ready for them,” Brady says. “Just go. Just go. Why am I going to go away and let two other guys have an opportunity at the job?’ And I didn’t sit there and think like, ‘Oh, if I’m sticking around, it’s going to be my job.’ But, one, where am I going to go? I get to be in the office and learn the defense. I looked at it as, ‘Here I am as an offensive coach. I can bring value. I might not bring any value as a defense. I probably didn’t know anything like looking back. But I thought I could bring value as an offensive-minded guy on defense.”

Nobody told Brady to sprint onto the field for that eight-yard hitch at Everglades.

Nobody advised he sleep on a hotel floor.

Nobody made him stay at school and prepare scouting reports.

He sees an opportunity, smells blood, leaves zero doubt.

“I got the job, basically, by not leaving,” Brady says. “I was the grinder. You figure out what everybody needs and do that. Your job is to try to make everybody’s life easier.”

When coaches returned to campus, the reports were done. They were stunned. Brady remembers Boone putting it bluntly to the head boss. “Shit,” he said, “we might as well hire him.”

Brady watched clinic tape of Penn State’s Tom Bradley to learn this funky new position. He had talent in his room. Luke Rhodes has been the Indianapolis Colts’ long-snapper for 10 years and counting. It also helped that the DC, Boone, coached linebackers.

Cite the harsh reality of this industry to Boone — how those clinics are flooded with candidates — and he interjects.

“There’s a bunch of guys that want to coach, but there’s not that many guys who want to be a coach,” says Boone, now a special teams coach at Duke. “We talk about it all the time. There’s guys who are fans with whistles and guys who are coaches. And guys who are coaches don’t get caught up in all the things: the gear, the trips, the travel, the hotel. They get caught up in the ball.

“You can’t dip your toe in it. You’ve got to jump in with your full body. And Joe — early — was one of those guys.”

Endorsing Brady was a no-brainer — because of this work ethic — but then his offensive acumen popped. Defensive coaches thought they knew what offenses were trying to accomplish on certain plays. Inside meetings, Boone says, the young Brady often corrected them. “That’s not really what is happening,” he’d say. “They’re doing this to create this matchup.” He was right. That season, William & Mary’s defense held opponents to 10 points or less in six games.

Boone saw a young coach dying to learn and evolve. Every day.

“That’s probably why his track has been as fast as it has,” he says.

No kidding. When Boone headed to Nevada into 2014, Brady assumed autonomy over those linebackers for a full season and his career then took off like a rocket ship.

To Penn State as a grad assistant. Shoop, the coach needling him as a player, was the DC who helped bring him to Happy Valley.

To the New Orleans Saints as an offensive assistant. He treasured access to an all-time great coach (Sean Payton) and quarterback (Drew Brees).

To LSU as the pass game coordinator. Pressure was high. Heading into that 2019 season, Brady knew that his boss, head coach Ed Orgeron, was squarely on the hot seat with an 11-11 record through two seasons. If his offense stunk it up? Coach O was getting fired. Brady had never called one play before in his life. “Just like that guy running out on the field,” Brady recalls. “Don’t change who you are just because you got another opportunity.” LSU humiliated defenses weekly en route to a national title. Burrow enjoyed one of the finest seasons in college football history. Just like that, he was the new boy wonder in this profession.

To the Carolina Panthers as an OC. The same season his greatest weapon (Christian McCaffrey) barely played and his quarterback play was bottom tier, Brady squeezed 1,000-yard seasons out of four players: D.J. Moore, Robbie Anderson, Curtis Samuel and Mike Davis. But this 1 ½-year run was a crash-landing to that proverbial carpet. A nightmare. Brady’s tone changes from biographical to introspective thinking back to his time as the youngest active offensive coordinator in the league. Ego entered the equation.

The 30-year-old Brady thought he needed to act a certain way and admits he did not make his job about the players. Scheme dictated all in his mind.

“If I try to be someone that I’m not, if I try to act like someone that I’m not, if I try to think I have all the answers, I’ll fail,” Brady says. “And in elements of myself, I did that in Carolina. I told myself if I ever get that opportunity again, I’m not going to do that.

“That’s not who I am. Don’t get me wrong, I love going into the office and drawing stuff up. But when I’m with my guys, I need them to know that it’s not about the scheme. We’re going to win because of you guys.”

Coaches can go through their 30s, their 40s, their 50s and never accept that players should take precedence over plays. This concept is a central theme in Michael Silver’s excellent “The Why is Everything.” Kyle Shanahan quickly gained notoriety as the sport’s most inventive play designer, but it took years for the San Francisco 49ers brainiac to value the gifts of individual players ahead of those X’s and O’s devised in the middle of the night. Bring up Shanahan’s name and Brady points out a key distinction.

Shanahan was winning and winning before finally evolving.

“I had to fail for that to happen,” Brady says. “How many times did Shanahan fail? The best thing that ever happened to me was getting fired.”

Brady did not want to chase another OC gig. Not yet.

He needed a total reset and coaching quarterbacks for the Buffalo Bills made perfect sense. Everyone else in town — OC Ken Dorsey, QB Josh Allen, etc. — knew the offense better than him, which forced Brady to open his eyes and reexamine offensive football. One thing went right in Carolina. Sam Darnold, one of his rotating Panthers QBs, must’ve enjoyed something about his coaching. Because if Darnold trashed his name to Allen, a close buddy, no way he gets this job.

Heading into Orchard Park, Brady knew all about Allen, the player.

He didn’t know Allen, the person.

That changed immediately.

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Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

ORCHARD PARK, NY — He never got nervous as a player. Joe Brady quips he didn’t see the field nearly enough.

As a coach, however, this is his unequivocal strength. Livelihoods are on the line — weekly — and he’s Joe Cool. Those closest to the Buffalo Bills’ new head coach barely see him break a sweat.

“I try not to be rattled because, one, my players see that,” Brady says. “Two, if I’m prepared, like I believe I do, everything will take care of itself.”

Granted, this was not the case Day 1 Meeting 1 as the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2022.

Brady remembers being far too rigid explaining how the Bills would do this and do that. Listening intently, Josh Allen could sense trepidation. As the conversation shifted to changes the Bills would be making in their protections, the team’s QB1 cracked a joke. Brady will leave details up for your imagination. The new coach mentioned a particular number aloud, and Allen chimed in. (“I’ll leave it at that.”)

Laughs filled the room and Brady felt himself loosen up — instantly. This was exactly what he needed.

Josh Allen can throw the football a country mile, bulldoze through linebackers and decimate defenses with a videographic memory. This ability to read a room off the field, however, rivals any skill he brings on it.

“Like, ‘Alright, this guy’s a little uptight in his first meeting. I can calm him down a little bit,’” Brady recalls. “And that’s what he does to any room he walks into, in this whole building. It’s all natural. It’s real. Not many people can have that pulse and be what that room needs. Not in a fake way.”

A season and a half later, Brady was elevated to offensive coordinator.

On a Monday, the Bills lost to the inferior Denver Broncos at home and fell to 5-5.

On a Tuesday, Brady was told he’s the new OC.

On Saturday, he walked into his most important meeting since that first address to the QBs. Brady now stood in front of the entire offense. He wanted guys to know he was ready for this moment, so he shared that story from his high school days. The time he sprinted right onto the field to catch a pass and forever change his life. He wouldn’t be where he is today without this conviction. (“They were probably all asleep,” jokes Brady.) And when it was time to discuss what amounted to a must-win vs. a talented New York Jets defense, he didn’t cast Quinnen Williams as a modern-day Mean Joe Greene, didn’t prop Sauce Gardner up on a pedestal, didn’t discuss this Jets unit at all.

Instead, Brady looked around the room and pointed at specific players in his own room.

Whoever’s on the other sideline needed to contend with the Buffalo Bills.

He reminded everyone: “It’s about us.”

Buffalo then put a nail in the Jets’ coffin with a 32-6 blowout win. After throwing an 81-yard touchdown to Khalil Shakir, a mic’d up Allen snarled: “I feel like I’m fucking back.” Fueled by a resurgent offense, those Bills came within an inch here, a few inches there of playing in the AFC Championship Game. The next season, 2024, Allen won league MVP. The next, 2025, the Bills lost in overtime of the divisional round in Denver.

Sean McDermott was fired.

It’s time for the next most important speech of Brady’s football life.

He won’t lose the plot.

Outside, a blizzard has engulfed Western New York. This climate should gobsmack opponents. Outside, across Abbott Road, that sparkling new stadium will host arguably the greatest player in the sport: Josh Allen. The new philosophy of this organization is quite refreshing. You need to play in Orchard Park. You need to play Josh Allen. Coaches can handle all minutiae, all nitty-gritty crafting of a gameplan and relay that information accordingly. There’s no need to build up any opponent as intergalactic. When it’s time to address the entire team — a roomful of players he’s gotten to know as human beings — Brady will hammer this point home.

“In front of the mass,” Brady says, “when you focus on the other team too much, you lose sight. I want the guys to know going into that game, ‘It is about us.’ They’ve got to play us and not the other way around.”

Because here’s another NFL truth: Players forever take on the personality of their head coach. Brady is not high strung like others in this profession. Imagining himself in that next speech, he brings up Josh Allen, Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown on offense and Terrel Bernard, Bradley Chubb and Christian Benford on defense and asks aloud: “Why am I going to walk into that game nervous?”

This is where he derives his brazen confidence, his edge.

Everyone will.

He doesn’t plan on coaching scared, so his players won’t play scared.

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Nobody wanted Joe Brady at that Nashville coaching convention. The William & Mary reserve who caught all of three passes in college willed himself into the cutthroat world of football coaching.

Nobody wanted Josh Allen out of Firebaugh, Calif. He received precisely zero scholarships out of high school, then sent an email to 1,000+ colleges after JUCO. Only Wyoming responded.

Now, this is the HC-QB combination leading the organization. Kindred spirits who both know what it’s like to swipe right until their thumbs bleed without a single connection. The two can relate at a deeper level. Finally, the Bills have alignment where it matters most.

Head Coach and Quarterback must be in lockstep for any team to have a puncher’s chance.

The relationship between Allen and Sean McDermott was never rosy. As first examined in ’23, and explored again post-firing, the head man’s calculus never changed. McDermott did not view No. 17 as the center of this team’s universe, which created unnecessary roadblocks. Those close to this relationship cite those snow angels on ESPN as a red herring, repeating that their personalities were oil and water. Echoing members of the Bills coaching staff past, current sources in the building insist McDermott did not understand he was in possession of one of three greatest players on the planet.

It was bizarre and it took Terry Pegula a while to grasp in full. Eventually, the team’s owner identified the disconnect.

That’s why Allen was granted a seat at the interview table.

The choice was Brady.

At his introductory press conference, Brady professed his love for the quarterback. There’s no denying the fact that — as it pertains to the team’s $330 Million Man — the team’s new head coach gets it.

OK, so Allen is now a married man who’ll turn 30 years old next month. He’s a father of a new baby girl. He’s no longer Shane Gillis 24/7/365 inside the locker room. Jokes about a certain reproductive organ are on the decline. But rest assured. Allen still has his fastball. To this day, Brady is hesitant to answer any question posed by his quarterback because there’s always the distinct possibility that it’s a set-up. “Dude,” the QB will say through a poker face. “I’m asking you a question.”

Brady answers. Brady falls into the trap.

This was a refreshing union for the coach. Granted, Sam Darnold was always liable to drop a Michael Scott “that’s what she said” in the quarterback room. After spending so much time around the ultra-serious, ultra-buttoned up Drew Brees and Joe Burrow, part of Brady wondered if that’s how all of the elites needed to carry themselves at the position. Allen was no cookie cutter. Allen was proof that you can be one of the guys… and lead.

“And he can do things that no one in the world really can do,” Brady adds. “There’s a lot of power to that, but he wants to be coached and he’s a human. I have a lot of love for that man.”

This relationship only strengthened over time.

Allen was extremely close to a coach before, then saw that coach (Brian Daboll) take a head-coaching job with the New York Giants. GM Brandon Beane told us he believes Allen was careful not to get too close to Brady in fear of losing him to another team. All good teams with defensive-minded head coaches rifle through OCs. “It hurt him when Daboll left as the mentor, the father figure, the friend,” Beane said. “He had a great relationship with Joe but might not have let himself get quite as vulnerable as he did with Daboll because I think last year he thought Joe was going to leave.”

Brady turned down the New Orleans Saints job in 2025, then earned this Bills job in 2026.

(Note: For more on this decision to hire Brady, here’s our February piece following a sitdown with Beane and president of business operations Pete Guelli.)

Brady’s vantage point? He saw a quarterback who desired a coach that both cared for him and held him accountable. Allen was tight with Daboll off the field, true. They’d hang out on the back deck late into the night. It was father-son. Daboll could also go scorched earth on him during a game.

“When you’re a player of his level,” Brady says, “you always have to be mindful of who’s real and who’s not. That’s the element that naturally takes time. Even myself, I don’t trust easily. I’m not going to walk into that first team meeting and think I’m going to have everybody’s respect right away. That’s earned. Coaching Josh Allen was no different. I didn’t expect that first meeting where Josh was going to be like, ‘Yep, I’m going to do whatever you say and believe in you and you got all the answers.’ It was like, ‘We’re going to work through this together.’”

Skeptics decry the Brady hire as safe and/or placating the quarterback.

If anything, the opposite is true.

Bringing in a head coach starting at square one with Allen — totally hitting the reset button on such a consequential relationship — could’ve further delayed the quest toward a ring at best or blown up at worst. Brady’s now been in town for four years and two months. From that fragile first meeting to today, he’s gotten to a place where he can rip the quarterback when he should be ripped. Lift him up when he needs lifted.

Remember: Brady grew up on Dad’s tough love himself. Every special HC-QB combo is laced with just the right amount of healthy friction. No different than a successful marriage. I loved this analogy from the excellent Patrick Bet-David in “Your Next 5 Moves.” Show me a husband and wife who never fight, he writes, and that’s a relationship destined for destruction.

If a quarterback knows your intent is pure, it’s a lot easier to have the harsh and necessary dialogue. Pick any famous duo through time. Mahomes-Reid, Brady-Belichick, Favre-Holmgren, Montana-Walsh, Bradshaw-Noll. All had depth.

Brady expects total transparency.

“There’s going to be times on the sideline where we’re going to yell at each other,” Brady says. “There’s a lot of times we don’t agree. That doesn’t change how we feel about one another. We both set a level of accountability to one another. There’s a standard of how it should look. As long as we both can take the blame and we’re not pointing the fingers at one another, we’re good to go. I’ve made bad calls, he’s made right. I’ve made calls and he’s gotten to the wrong play. He’ll own it, I own it and we move on to the next play.”

A far cry from a head coach who wasn’t thrilled that Allen received the bulk of credit (a real thing) and once went ballistic on that quarterback for building a house in Orchard Park. But let’s not digress.

Indeed, there’s an sharp increase in emotional intelligence at One Bills Drive. Players are saying the quiet parts out loud. The day Brady was introduced as head coach, lineman Alec Anderson said: “He wants us to know that we don’t have to have our assholes so tight around him all the time. We can go walk around and be our personalities.” X’s and O’s do matter. The Bills will attack January football with more schematic ferocity. First, Brady knows he must connect with everyone on a level that transcends those X’s and O’s.

He wants to know the person more than the player. Their own sleeping-on-the-hotel-floor defining moment.

He points to James Cook, a man of few words. Where some people may interpret Cook’s stone-cold demeanor as “not caring,” Brady knows better. The two grew up 25 miles apart. “Talk to him out on the football field,” Brady says, “and he’ll say whatever he needs to say.” He cites quarterback dinners. Attending these each Friday night deepened his bond with Allen and the backups. He saw how they interacted with their wives and girlfriends.

“It’s everything,” Brady says. “If you only care about the player, you’re only reaching half of them. There’s so much more. Knowing where they come from. Knowing, ‘Alright, this guy might not communicate a lot. But it’s OK because I know who he is and his personality. When he does this, you reach him in this way.”

For 32 head coaches, life away from football often resembles sporadic clicks of a camera.

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald stated that he spends a half-hour with his son during the week, with a tint of pride. As if it was ample time.

Coaches usually sound like aliens from another planet on the topic of work-life balance. The industry is inherently psychotic. Brady grew up with a (very) involved father and, dammit, he’s trying to thread this impossible needle with a 3-year-old and 5-month-old. Here, Brady admits there’s a ton of guilt in knowing his kids aren’t getting the best version of himself. He hasn’t come up for air since the Bills’ 33-30 overtime loss at Mile High, from interviewing for three different head-coaching vacancies… to scoring this gig amongst nine candidates… to filling out his first coaching staff… to free agency to, now, preparing for the NFL draft. (“No complaints there!”) His dream’s been fulfilled. But recently, Brady was scrolling through pictures from the family’s vacation at the beach last summer — the last time his family spent a string of uninterrupted days together.

Seeing how much his son has grown since then was “depressing,” he admits. Coaching can make any man’s life feel like the Adam Sandler movie, “Click.” Time’s stuck on fast forward. You miss birthdays, buzzer-beaters, daddy-daughter dances, milestones you’ll never get back.

Yet, this is the business Joe Brady has chosen.

Hell yeah, he enjoys it. Every minute of it. He knows there are millions of people who work endless hours at jobs they hate. He gets to watch football.

So, he finds a way.

This spring, Brady has been setting his alarm for 3 a.m. each morning. This gets Brady to the facility by 3:20. That way, he’s working while his kids sleep for three more hours. Wait until 6 a.m. and he knows he wouldn’t be back home until 10. Finding those hidden hours ensures Brady can take over all bath and bedtime proceedings. His baby girl still needs Mom, but Jordan is Dad’s responsibility. And all fellow fathers? Joe Brady is you. He, too, knows the perils and pitfalls of the nightly witching hour. Wait too long, break routine a smidge, and chaos awaits. “Absolute madness,” he jokes. He’ll read book, after book, after book, after book, after book, often turning off the lamp and using his iPhone flashlight as a reading light to ever… so… gradually… see his son’s eyelids finally close for the night.

Brady encourages his assistant coaches to bring their kids to work if they want. As long as they’re not in meetings, he’s got no problem with it. His own son loves it at One Bills Drive. The result, he hopes, is a healthy work environment for all.

No way could Joe Brady have predicted this as his life inside that crammed hotel room 13 years ago. Back when he had zero clue if he’d ever work in coaching. He was one of many. He can still remember the other young coaches at the convention dying to enter this crazy world. A handful blazed a trail. Justin Rascati, the QBs coach at James Madison, was present. Now, he’s the pass game coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals. Matt Guerrieri, a GA at Duke, is now the safeties coach at Ohio State University. Josh Grizzard was a GA at Duke, too. He’s the pass game coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The small-school coach honored in Nashville that year, Craig Bohl, took the job at Wyoming before then taking a chance on a hard-throwing gunslinger from Firebaugh.

And at the NFL Combine this past February, Brady ran into a familiar face. It was Ahmaad Smith. “Last I saw you,” Smith told him, “you were sleeping on the floor.”

OK, so Macdonald’s comment might’ve been a tick extreme… but not that extreme. Nobody in the NFL flinched when the clip went viral because everyone understands that winning demands sacrifice.

The 2026 season begins soon.

Brady wants what Macdonald’s Seahawks currently have.

It’ll require more than a nocturnal life.

Modern playoff games almost always boil down to one or two plays. The chasm between winning and losing is razor thin.

Coaches who master split-second decisions are at the advantage. It’s why the Bills put all candidates through rigorous game-management testing. If one game goes haywire, that’s understandable. Nine years’ worth of January failings is a trend that bakes into the subconscious of an entire organization. Doom becomes the expectation. This is what Pegula was referencing by that “proverbial playoff wall.” I get the general populace going berserk over his Keon Coleman dig. Most people are offended by their own shadow nowadays. But the press conference quote that should’ve caught fire was when the owner got real on McDermott.

“It’s not an easy decision. Trust me,” Pegula said. “But what is success? Is success being in the playoffs seven years in a row with no Super Bowl appearance?”

He let those words hang in suspense.

Nobody knows yet how Brady handles this imperative aspect of the game because there’s no way to simulate fourth and 2 from midfield with 1:35 remaining in front of 60,000 fans. He knows this.

All holistic messaging, however, is supported by action.

During his interview for the job, Brady used the word “attack” often. Up in the booth as a playcaller, he explained, it drove him mad when communication to Allen shut off at the 15-second mark of the play clock and defenses started to disguise and deceive. He wants opposing playcallers to feel this raw helplessness, to scream “F—k!” in horror like he would. Coaches who faced this Bills D years past also informed the team’s brass during the interview process just how stagnant and predictable their defense was to face presnap.

Bend-don’t-break logic doesn’t fly against quarterbacks capable of killing you with a thousand paper cuts.

On 52 non-kneeldown drives in their last six playoff defeats, the Bills have surrendered 25 TDs, 13 field goals and 3.83 points per drive while creating only three turnovers and forcing only 12 punts with one missed field goal.

Offensively, expect changes. Gameplans in the past could become too hyper-focused on the opposition. If the Bills faced an elite passer — like Patrick Mahomes, for example — the edict from above was often to play keepaway. Play safe. Nerves were obvious in the head coach ahead of those Kansas City Chiefs playoff games. Several sources inside the building still diagnose those 13 fateful seconds at Arrowhead Stadium (and the game’s bizarre aftermath) as the moment that broke this franchise’s psychology.

The roster is much different. Now, the head coach is different.

It’s worth noting that Brady wasn’t even around for the team’s debilitating 2021 divisional playoff loss in KC and that he only has glowing things to say about his former boss.

Finally, Buffalo can start anew.

Walking the halls those other six days of the week, Brady won’t resemble a Tin Man. He’s the opposite of tight. He’s the first to point out that this doesn’t mean he won’t make mistakes. His hope is for the Bills to possess enough “competitive stamina” to forget whatever happened the previous day, to shake off an inevitable last-second loss instead of letting it become the team’s identity. Speeches. Play style. Personnel. He plans on doing everything in his power to make such a fearless mentality infectious. Starting… now. Players are officially back for offseason workouts.

It’s “two-fold,” he adds. Brady needs the Bills defense to bring this energy.

“And if we talk about ourselves (on defense) like we’re on a level of Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, then we’re going to be able to play with that mindset,” Brady says. “If we just talk about like, ‘yeah, they’re above us and they’re so much better than us,’ we might start second-guessing: ‘Can I go make that play?’ And that’s why I want the personalities of the guys that are going to come in with that mentality. And it’s not only about Josh Allen, but damn, we got Josh Allen.”

Through the free agency frenzy, Brady sat in on all transactions (and near transactions).

Watching Beane work the phones agent to agent to agent was vertigo-inducing.

There were times the head coach thought the GM should hang up on agents jerking the Bills around. As he learned, there are layers to the job. That agent pissing off the Bills may represent someone in their building. Or another player they’re pursuing.

“I enjoy coaching way more now,” Brady says, “because there’s no way in hell I could do that.”

The head coach is thrilled with all moves made to smash that wall. Before March, Brady calls the idea of acquiring this talent a “pipe dream.”

Player to player, Brady details what has him excited.

He sees himself in Dee Alford. After the signing, Brady caught up with the team’s new nickel cornerback and learned this Division II product who played in the CFL was out of a job throughout COVID. He worked the night shift at FedEx, trained, stayed ready, got his shot and earned this NFL life. (“This is the type of guy that I want on my team.”) Brady worked with DJ Moore in Carolina, of course, and knows the Bills need a separator in the room. (“Ecstatic to be able to work with him and put him in our crew. I was pumped about that one.”)

Back to his days as a Saints grunt, Brady has made a habit of taking notes on players that gave him fits. Safeties Harrison Smith and Budda Baker earned high praise. Back then, intel was chronicled in a literal notebook. Today, he keeps a running file on his tablet.

Chauncey Gardner-Johnson made the file. He wants this championship swagger on his defense.

Bradley Chubb was a player he took a ton of notes on. Brady and new DC Jim Leonhard view the ex-Bronco, ex-Dolphin as a perfect scheme fit who’ll stay on the field all four downs. The head coach expects Greg Rousseau and Chubb to shut down the edges vs. the run and — another year removed from a torn ACL — for Chubb to invigorate this pass rush. Perhaps most importantly? There was a “C” on his chest. The more Brady spoke to people, the more he realized Chubb was a captain for reasons beyond his play. (“He’ll do wonders for this locker room, this organization.”)

Now, the honeymoon is over.

Last week, I touched base with one ex-Bill who shed light on the HC-QB dynamic in Part III our ’23 series. With five exclamation points, he assures via text that players love Brady. Now, it’s simple. He listed off four unknowns. We’ll see if Brady can handle the surface-of-the-sun heat associated with the job, manage games late, truly lead a roomful of grown men through hard times and surround himself with assistants who’ll cover his blind spots. On this final point, Brady was ecstatic to land longtime New Orleans Saints lieutenant Pete Carmichael as his OC. When Brees is enshrined into Canton, Brady knows the quarterback will be thanking Carmichael. “An absolute stud,” Brady says. “He’s ours now. He was the most important get for me.”

Like the spring of 2013 at William & Mary, Brady applied his offensive brain to defense in hiring Leonhard to stress opposing playcallers.

No coach knows how he’ll handle the job until they’re in the job.

This ex-player’s advice? Be humble “and get out of the damn way.”

“It’s about Josh, the locker room and that city,” this player says. “If he understands that, he will win a trophy. If he thinks it’s about him and he’s special, he will fail to.”

The city is dying for that trophy. One generation endured four straight Super Bowl defeats. The next, a 17-year playoff drought. Now, they’ve got a future Hall of Fame quarterback with nothing to show for it. No QB in NFL history has won more playoff games (eight) than Allen without an appearance in the big game. Brady is fully aware that reaching the Super Bowl is officially the year-to-year expectation.

When I ask what makes him the man for this moment, he admits he hasn’t even thought about the Lombardi Trophy.

When he won a national title at LSU, he never touched the hardware. Never even saw it up close.

He’s sure he’ll feel something if he ever hoists the sterling silver this February.

“I’ve been here long enough to see the impact that it would have on the guys that I coach and this freakin’ city,” Brady says. “That means way more to me. That drives me. I get to coach football, but the people that I get to do it for is what matters to me. And we have such a good locker room. I’ve been fortunate that I’m in a place that I already know the people, both outside the building and in the building. The expectations that this city has? It’s what I have.”

When Brady walked into new Highmark Stadium recently, he was awestruck. It hit him. For as long as this building exists, he is the one calling the first play. Briefly, Brady allows himself to look into the future. The new man in charge may be a refreshing gust of calm who embraces all JA17-centric math, who gets all 53 players to stay in attack mode, who’s prepared for every conceivable scenario.

The ball will be kicked off. The play clock will start winding down. In that exact moment, the gravity of his reality will become very real.

“I won’t be nervous,” he says with a pause. “But an emotion will hit me.”

Sleeping on a mattress — not on a hotel floor — should guarantee maximum focus. (With the help of a Fast Twich or four.)

Perhaps a variation of Dad’s triple option is the ticket.

That is, of course, assuming a backup wide receiver on the sideline isn’t overcome with the sudden urge to sprint onto the field.

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All 12 parts of Bob McGinn’s 42nd annual draft series:

• Part 1, WR: Who’s the next star wideout?

• Part 2, TE: Kenyon Sadiq and the hunt for matchup nightmares

• Part 3, T: Why Francis Mauigoa ‘n co. may define the 2026 NFL Draft

• Part 4, G/C: Why this is the year to draft a center

• Part 5, QB: The Fernando Mendoza Question

• Part 6, RB: Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love? ‘The best NFL prospect in this draft

• Part 7, DL: Secure your space-eater

• Part 8, Edge: Deep 2026 class promises to torment quarterbacks

• Part 9, LB: How should an NFL team unleash Arvell Reese?

• Part 10, CB: McCoy? Delane? Hood? Inside the debate at the top...

• Part 11, S: Why Caleb Downs, a ‘slam dunk,’ is one of the best players in the NFL Draft

• Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

Inside today’s piece…

• Why the pressure is on Matt LaFleur. You heard from Javon Bullard. The Packers are finding the right attitudes. Will the Packers HC allow these personalities to flourish?

• The Giants have a chance to vault themselves into playoff contention with John Harbaugh. One prospect makes a lot of sense.

• My thoughts on the bungalow pictures seen ‘round the football world.

• A draft take for all legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

ICYMI, our series on Joe Brady is also live…

Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

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Bless Mike Daniels. The man tried. The man was ahead of his time during a Green Bay Packers career that lasted 2012 to 2018.

He sat in his locker — a football Buddha — imploring his teammates to play with more violence. More bad intentions. Publicly, the defensive tackle was a lone wolf on defense. He was the only player speaking in such blunt terms. Privately, his message was even louder. After seeing running backs Eddie Lacy and James Starks get hit by Brandon Meriweather, then seeing Jermichael Finley’s career end during the 2013 season, he asked a simple question: “When are we going to punch somebody else in the face?”

“I’m tired of watching my teammates, my brothers who I love get carried out of the game because they got hurt,” Daniels reflected in a 2023 chat with Go Long. “I took that personal and that’s where some of the flags came in. That was hard, man. I hated watching my brothers on offense go through that, and I wanted us to be able to implement that type of punishment.

“But it seemed like that wasn’t on the forefront of everybody’s mind.”

A decade later, the same problem persists.

With one very notable difference.

Read more

Eventually, yes, we get into everything Buffalo Bills and NFL Draft with Jay Skurski of The Buffalo News. You can read his work here. Always enjoy lobbing questions back ‘n forth with Jay. This episode, we try to figure out which direction GM Brandon Beane and head coach Joe Brady will go in Round 1 of the draft — Edge? Nose? Linebacker? Wideout?

Per usual, the conversation shifts toward the man central to everything in Orchard Park: quarterback Josh Allen. I examined Allen’s relationship with Brady in Part II of our series this week and go a little deeper here as well.

There’s plenty of Brady talk and Beane talk as we make sense of a 2026 Bills team facing very real and clear expectations: It’s the Super Bowl.

Appreciate everyone who joined this broadcast on Substack Live. You can catch future live recordings by downloading the Substack app and turning notifications on:

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Be sure to subscribe to get everything in full, including Bob McGinn’s 42nd annual draft series. He talked to scouts around the country to give you the unfiltered look at this year’s prospects. Links here.

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ICYMI, here’s my two-parter on Joe Brady:

Part I: ‘I’ll set my jaw’

Part II: ‘They’ve got to play us’

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Read Part I here.

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ORCHARD PARK, NY — He never got nervous as a player. Joe Brady quips he didn’t see the field nearly enough.

As a coach, however, this is his unequivocal strength. Livelihoods are on the line — weekly — and he’s Joe Cool. Those closest to the Buffalo Bills’ new head coach barely see him break a sweat.

“I try not to be rattled because, one, my players see that,” Brady says. “Two, if I’m prepared, like I believe I do, everything will take care of itself.”

Granted, this was not the case Day 1 Meeting 1 as the team’s quarterbacks coach in 2022.

Brady remembers being far too rigid explaining how the Bills would do this and do that. Listening intently, Josh Allen could sense trepidation. As the conversation shifted to changes the Bills would be making in their protections, the team’s QB1 cracked a joke. Brady will leave details up for your imagination. The new coach mentioned a particular number aloud, and Allen chimed in. (“I’ll leave it at that.”)

Laughs filled the room and Brady felt himself loosen up — instantly. This was exactly what he needed.

Josh Allen can throw the football a country mile, bulldoze through linebackers and decimate defenses with a videographic memory. This ability to read a room off the field, however, rivals any skill he brings on it.

“Like, ‘Alright, this guy’s a little uptight in his first meeting. I can calm him down a little bit,’” Brady recalls. “And that’s what he does to any room he walks into, in this whole building. It’s all natural. It’s real. Not many people can have that pulse and be what that room needs. Not in a fake way.”

A season and a half later, Brady was elevated to offensive coordinator.

On a Monday, the Bills lost to the inferior Denver Broncos at home and fell to 5-5.

On a Tuesday, Brady was told he’s the new OC.

On Saturday, he walked into his most important meeting since that first address to the QBs. Brady now stood in front of the entire offense. He wanted guys to know he was ready for this moment, so he shared that story from his high school days. The time he sprinted right onto the field to catch a pass and forever change his life. He wouldn’t be where he is today without this conviction. (“They were probably all asleep,” jokes Brady.) And when it was time to discuss what amounted to a must-win vs. a talented New York Jets defense, he didn’t cast Quinnen Williams as a modern-day Mean Joe Greene, didn’t prop Sauce Gardner up on a pedestal, didn’t discuss this Jets unit at all.

Instead, Brady looked around the room and pointed at specific players in his own room.

Whoever’s on the other sideline needed to contend with the Buffalo Bills.

He reminded everyone: “It’s about us.”

Buffalo then put a nail in the Jets’ coffin with a 32-6 blowout win. After throwing an 81-yard touchdown to Khalil Shakir, a mic’d up Allen snarled: “I feel like I’m fucking back.” Fueled by a resurgent offense, those Bills came within an inch here, a few inches there of playing in the AFC Championship Game. The next season, 2024, Allen won league MVP. The next, 2025, the Bills lost in overtime of the divisional round in Denver.

Sean McDermott was fired.

It’s time for the next most important speech of Brady’s football life.

He won’t lose the plot.

Outside, a blizzard has engulfed Western New York. This climate should gobsmack opponents. Outside, across Abbott Road, that sparkling new stadium will host arguably the greatest player in the sport: Josh Allen. The new philosophy of this organization is quite refreshing. You need to play in Orchard Park. You need to play Josh Allen. Coaches can handle all minutiae, all nitty-gritty crafting of a gameplan and relay that information accordingly. There’s no need to build up any opponent as intergalactic. When it’s time to address the entire team — a roomful of players he’s gotten to know as human beings — Brady will hammer this point home.

“In front of the mass,” Brady says, “when you focus on the other team too much, you lose sight. I want the guys to know going into that game, ‘It is about us.’ They’ve got to play us and not the other way around.”

Because here’s another NFL truth: Players forever take on the personality of their head coach. Brady is not high strung like others in this profession. Imagining himself in that next speech, he brings up Josh Allen, Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown on offense and Terrel Bernard, Bradley Chubb and Christian Benford on defense and asks aloud: “Why am I going to walk into that game nervous?”

This is where he derives his brazen confidence, his edge.

Everyone will.

He doesn’t plan on coaching scared, so his players won’t play scared.

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Nobody wanted Joe Brady at that Nashville coaching convention. The William & Mary reserve who caught all of three passes in college willed himself into the cutthroat world of football coaching.

Nobody wanted Josh Allen out of Firebaugh, Calif. He received precisely zero scholarships out of high school, then sent an email to 1,000+ colleges after JUCO. Only Wyoming responded.

Now, this is the HC-QB combination leading the organization. Kindred spirits who both know what it’s like to swipe right until their thumbs bleed without a single connection. The two can relate at a deeper level. Finally, the Bills have alignment where it matters most.

Head Coach and Quarterback must be in lockstep for any team to have a puncher’s chance.

The relationship between Allen and Sean McDermott was never rosy. As first examined in ’23, and explored again post-firing, the head man’s calculus never changed. McDermott did not view No. 17 as the center of this team’s universe, which created unnecessary roadblocks. Those close to this relationship cite those snow angels on ESPN as a red herring, repeating that their personalities were oil and water. Echoing members of the Bills coaching staff past, current sources in the building insist McDermott did not understand he was in possession of one of three greatest players on the planet.

It was bizarre and it took Terry Pegula a while to grasp in full. Eventually, the team’s owner identified the disconnect.

That’s why Allen was granted a seat at the interview table.

The choice was Brady.

At his introductory press conference, Brady professed his love for the quarterback. There’s no denying the fact that — as it pertains to the team’s $330 Million Man — the team’s new head coach gets it.

OK, so Allen is now a married man who’ll turn 30 years old next month. He’s a father of a new baby girl. He’s no longer Shane Gillis 24/7/365 inside the locker room. Jokes about a certain reproductive organ are on the decline. But rest assured. Allen still has his fastball. To this day, Brady is hesitant to answer any question posed by his quarterback because there’s always the distinct possibility that it’s a set-up. “Dude,” the QB will say through a poker face. “I’m asking you a question.”

Brady answers. Brady falls into the trap.

This was a refreshing union for the coach. Granted, Sam Darnold was always liable to drop a Michael Scott “that’s what she said” in the quarterback room. After spending so much time around the ultra-serious, ultra-buttoned up Drew Brees and Joe Burrow, part of Brady wondered if that’s how all of the elites needed to carry themselves at the position. Allen was no cookie cutter. Allen was proof that you can be one of the guys… and lead.

“And he can do things that no one in the world really can do,” Brady adds. “There’s a lot of power to that, but he wants to be coached and he’s a human. I have a lot of love for that man.”

This relationship only strengthened over time.

Allen was extremely close to a coach before, then saw that coach (Brian Daboll) take a head-coaching job with the New York Giants. GM Brandon Beane told us he believes Allen was careful not to get too close to Brady in fear of losing him to another team. All good teams with defensive-minded head coaches rifle through OCs. “It hurt him when Daboll left as the mentor, the father figure, the friend,” Beane said. “He had a great relationship with Joe but might not have let himself get quite as vulnerable as he did with Daboll because I think last year he thought Joe was going to leave.”

Brady turned down the New Orleans Saints job in 2025, then earned this Bills job in 2026.

(Note: For more on this decision to hire Brady, here’s our February piece following a sitdown with Beane and president of business operations Pete Guelli.)

Brady’s vantage point? He saw a quarterback who desired a coach that both cared for him and held him accountable. Allen was tight with Daboll off the field, true. They’d hang out on the back deck late into the night. It was father-son. Daboll could also go scorched earth on him during a game.

“When you’re a player of his level,” Brady says, “you always have to be mindful of who’s real and who’s not. That’s the element that naturally takes time. Even myself, I don’t trust easily. I’m not going to walk into that first team meeting and think I’m going to have everybody’s respect right away. That’s earned. Coaching Josh Allen was no different. I didn’t expect that first meeting where Josh was going to be like, ‘Yep, I’m going to do whatever you say and believe in you and you got all the answers.’ It was like, ‘We’re going to work through this together.’”

Skeptics decry the Brady hire as safe and/or placating the quarterback.

If anything, the opposite is true.

Bringing in a head coach starting at square one with Allen — totally hitting the reset button on such a consequential relationship — could’ve further delayed the quest toward a ring at best or blown up at worst. Brady’s now been in town for four years and two months. From that fragile first meeting to today, he’s gotten to a place where he can rip the quarterback when he should be ripped. Lift him up when he needs lifted.

Remember: Brady grew up on Dad’s tough love himself. Every special HC-QB combo is laced with just the right amount of healthy friction. No different than a successful marriage. I loved this analogy from the excellent Patrick Bet-David in “Your Next 5 Moves.” Show me a husband and wife who never fight, he writes, and that’s a relationship destined for destruction.

If a quarterback knows your intent is pure, it’s a lot easier to have the harsh and necessary dialogue. Pick any famous duo through time. Mahomes-Reid, Brady-Belichick, Favre-Holmgren, Montana-Walsh, Bradshaw-Noll. All had depth.

Brady expects total transparency.

“There’s going to be times on the sideline where we’re going to yell at each other,” Brady says. “There’s a lot of times we don’t agree. That doesn’t change how we feel about one another. We both set a level of accountability to one another. There’s a standard of how it should look. As long as we both can take the blame and we’re not pointing the fingers at one another, we’re good to go. I’ve made bad calls, he’s made right. I’ve made calls and he’s gotten to the wrong play. He’ll own it, I own it and we move on to the next play.”

A far cry from a head coach who wasn’t thrilled that Allen received the bulk of credit (a real thing) and once went ballistic on that quarterback for building a house in Orchard Park. But let’s not digress.

Indeed, there’s an sharp increase in emotional intelligence at One Bills Drive. Players are saying the quiet parts out loud. The day Brady was introduced as head coach, lineman Alec Anderson said: “He wants us to know that we don’t have to have our assholes so tight around him all the time. We can go walk around and be our personalities.” X’s and O’s do matter. The Bills will attack January football with more schematic ferocity. First, Brady knows he must connect with everyone on a level that transcends those X’s and O’s.

He wants to know the person more than the player. Their own sleeping-on-the-hotel-floor defining moment.

He points to James Cook, a man of few words. Where some people may interpret Cook’s stone-cold demeanor as “not caring,” Brady knows better. The two grew up 25 miles apart. “Talk to him out on the football field,” Brady says, “and he’ll say whatever he needs to say.” He cites quarterback dinners. Attending these each Friday night deepened his bond with Allen and the backups. He saw how they interacted with their wives and girlfriends.

“It’s everything,” Brady says. “If you only care about the player, you’re only reaching half of them. There’s so much more. Knowing where they come from. Knowing, ‘Alright, this guy might not communicate a lot. But it’s OK because I know who he is and his personality. When he does this, you reach him in this way.”

For 32 head coaches, life away from football often resembles sporadic clicks of a camera.

Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald stated that he spends a half-hour with his son during the week, with a tint of pride. As if it was ample time.

Coaches usually sound like aliens from another planet on the topic of work-life balance. The industry is inherently psychotic. Brady grew up with a (very) involved father and, dammit, he’s trying to thread this impossible needle with a 3-year-old and 5-month-old. Here, Brady admits there’s a ton of guilt in knowing his kids aren’t getting the best version of himself. He hasn’t come up for air since the Bills’ 33-30 overtime loss at Mile High, from interviewing for three different head-coaching vacancies… to scoring this gig amongst nine candidates… to filling out his first coaching staff… to free agency to, now, preparing for the NFL draft. (“No complaints there!”) His dream’s been fulfilled. But recently, Brady was scrolling through pictures from the family’s vacation at the beach last summer — the last time his family spent a string of uninterrupted days together.

Seeing how much his son has grown since then was “depressing,” he admits. Coaching can make any man’s life feel like the Adam Sandler movie, “Click.” Time’s stuck on fast forward. You miss birthdays, buzzer-beaters, daddy-daughter dances, milestones you’ll never get back.

Yet, this is the business Joe Brady has chosen.

Hell yeah, he enjoys it. Every minute of it. He knows there are millions of people who work endless hours at jobs they hate. He gets to watch football.

So, he finds a way.

This spring, Brady has been setting his alarm for 3 a.m. each morning. This gets Brady to the facility by 3:20. That way, he’s working while his kids sleep for three more hours. Wait until 6 a.m. and he knows he wouldn’t be back home until 10. Finding those hidden hours ensures Brady can take over all bath and bedtime proceedings. His baby girl still needs Mom, but Jordan is Dad’s responsibility. And all fellow fathers? Joe Brady is you. He, too, knows the perils and pitfalls of the nightly witching hour. Wait too long, break routine a smidge, and chaos awaits. “Absolute madness,” he jokes. He’ll read book, after book, after book, after book, after book, often turning off the lamp and using his iPhone flashlight as a reading light to ever… so… gradually… see his son’s eyelids finally close for the night.

Brady encourages his assistant coaches to bring their kids to work if they want. As long as they’re not in meetings, he’s got no problem with it. His own son loves it at One Bills Drive. The result, he hopes, is a healthy work environment for all.

No way could Joe Brady have predicted this as his life inside that crammed hotel room 13 years ago. Back when he had zero clue if he’d ever work in coaching. He was one of many. He can still remember the other young coaches at the convention dying to enter this crazy world. A handful blazed a trail. Justin Rascati, the QBs coach at James Madison, was present. Now, he’s the pass game coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals. Matt Guerrieri, a GA at Duke, is now the safeties coach at Ohio State University. Josh Grizzard was a GA at Duke, too. He’s the pass game coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The small-school coach honored in Nashville that year, Craig Bohl, took the job at Wyoming before then taking a chance on a hard-throwing gunslinger from Firebaugh.

And at the NFL Combine this past February, Brady ran into a familiar face. It was Ahmaad Smith. “Last I saw you,” Smith told him, “you were sleeping on the floor.”

OK, so Macdonald’s comment might’ve been a tick extreme… but not that extreme. Nobody in the NFL flinched when the clip went viral because everyone understands that winning demands sacrifice.

The 2026 season begins soon.

Brady wants what Macdonald’s Seahawks currently have.

It’ll require more than a nocturnal life.

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Modern playoff games almost always boil down to one or two plays. The chasm between winning and losing is razor thin.

Coaches who master split-second decisions are at the advantage. It’s why the Bills put all candidates through rigorous game-management testing. If one game goes haywire, that’s understandable. Nine years’ worth of January failings is a trend that bakes into the subconscious of an entire organization. Doom becomes the expectation. This is what Pegula was referencing by that “proverbial playoff wall.” I get the general populace going berserk over his Keon Coleman dig. Most people are offended by their own shadow nowadays. But the press conference quote that should’ve caught fire was when the owner got real on McDermott.

“It’s not an easy decision. Trust me,” Pegula said. “But what is success? Is success being in the playoffs seven years in a row with no Super Bowl appearance?”

He let those words hang in suspense.

Nobody knows yet how Brady handles this imperative aspect of the game because there’s no way to simulate fourth and 2 from midfield with 1:35 remaining in front of 60,000 fans. He knows this.

All holistic messaging, however, is supported by action.

During his interview for the job, Brady used the word “attack” often. Up in the booth as a playcaller, he explained, it drove him mad when communication to Allen shut off at the 15-second mark of the play clock and defenses started to disguise and deceive. He wants opposing playcallers to feel this raw helplessness, to scream “F—k!” in horror like he would. Coaches who faced this Bills D years past also informed the team’s brass during the interview process just how stagnant and predictable their defense was to face presnap.

Bend-don’t-break logic doesn’t fly against quarterbacks capable of killing you with a thousand paper cuts.

On 52 non-kneeldown drives in their last six playoff defeats, the Bills have surrendered 25 TDs, 13 field goals and 3.83 points per drive while creating only three turnovers and forcing only 12 punts with one missed field goal.

Offensively, expect changes. Gameplans in the past could become too hyper-focused on the opposition. If the Bills faced an elite passer — like Patrick Mahomes, for example — the edict from above was often to play keepaway. Play safe. Nerves were obvious in the head coach ahead of those Kansas City Chiefs playoff games. Several sources inside the building still diagnose those 13 fateful seconds at Arrowhead Stadium (and the game’s bizarre aftermath) as the moment that broke this franchise’s psychology.

The roster is much different. Now, the head coach is different.

It’s worth noting that Brady wasn’t even around for the team’s debilitating 2021 divisional playoff loss in KC and that he only has glowing things to say about his former boss.

Finally, Buffalo can start anew.

Walking the halls those other six days of the week, Brady won’t resemble a Tin Man. He’s the opposite of tight. He’s the first to point out that this doesn’t mean he won’t make mistakes. His hope is for the Bills to possess enough “competitive stamina” to forget whatever happened the previous day, to shake off an inevitable last-second loss instead of letting it become the team’s identity. Speeches. Play style. Personnel. He plans on doing everything in his power to make such a fearless mentality infectious. Starting… now. Players are officially back for offseason workouts.

It’s “two-fold,” he adds. Brady needs the Bills defense to bring this energy.

“And if we talk about ourselves (on defense) like we’re on a level of Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, then we’re going to be able to play with that mindset,” Brady says. “If we just talk about like, ‘yeah, they’re above us and they’re so much better than us,’ we might start second-guessing: ‘Can I go make that play?’ And that’s why I want the personalities of the guys that are going to come in with that mentality. And it’s not only about Josh Allen, but damn, we got Josh Allen.”

Through the free agency frenzy, Brady sat in on all transactions (and near transactions).

Watching Beane work the phones agent to agent to agent was vertigo-inducing.

There were times the head coach thought the GM should hang up on agents jerking the Bills around. As he learned, there are layers to the job. That agent pissing off the Bills may represent someone in their building. Or another player they’re pursuing.

“I enjoy coaching way more now,” Brady says, “because there’s no way in hell I could do that.”

The head coach is thrilled with all moves made to smash that wall. Before March, Brady calls the idea of acquiring this talent a “pipe dream.”

Player to player, Brady details what has him excited.

He sees himself in Dee Alford. After the signing, Brady caught up with the team’s new nickel cornerback and learned this Division II product who played in the CFL was out of a job throughout COVID. He worked the night shift at FedEx, trained, stayed ready, got his shot and earned this NFL life. (“This is the type of guy that I want on my team.”) Brady worked with DJ Moore in Carolina, of course, and knows the Bills need a separator in the room. (“Ecstatic to be able to work with him and put him in our crew. I was pumped about that one.”)

Back to his days as a Saints grunt, Brady has made a habit of taking notes on players that gave him fits. Safeties Harrison Smith and Budda Baker earned high praise. Back then, intel was chronicled in a literal notebook. Today, he keeps a running file on his tablet.

Chauncey Gardner-Johnson made the file. He wants this championship swagger on his defense.

Bradley Chubb was a player he took a ton of notes on. Brady and new DC Jim Leonhard view the ex-Bronco, ex-Dolphin as a perfect scheme fit who’ll stay on the field all four downs. The head coach expects Greg Rousseau and Chubb to shut down the edges vs. the run and — another year removed from a torn ACL — for Chubb to invigorate this pass rush. Perhaps most importantly? There was a “C” on his chest. The more Brady spoke to people, the more he realized Chubb was a captain for reasons beyond his play. (“He’ll do wonders for this locker room, this organization.”)

Now, the honeymoon is over.

Last week, I touched base with one ex-Bill who shed light on the HC-QB dynamic in Part III our ’23 series. With five exclamation points, he assures via text that players love Brady. Now, it’s simple. He listed off four unknowns. We’ll see if Brady can handle the surface-of-the-sun heat associated with the job, manage games late, truly lead a roomful of grown men through hard times and surround himself with assistants who’ll cover his blind spots. On this final point, Brady was ecstatic to land longtime New Orleans Saints lieutenant Pete Carmichael as his OC. When Brees is enshrined into Canton, Brady knows the quarterback will be thanking Carmichael. “An absolute stud,” Brady says. “He’s ours now. He was the most important get for me.”

Like the spring of 2013 at William & Mary, Brady applied his offensive brain to defense in hiring Leonhard to stress opposing playcallers.

No coach knows how he’ll handle the job until they’re in the job.

This ex-player’s advice? Be humble “and get out of the damn way.”

“It’s about Josh, the locker room and that city,” this player says. “If he understands that, he will win a trophy. If he thinks it’s about him and he’s special, he will fail to.”

The city is dying for that trophy. One generation endured four straight Super Bowl defeats. The next, a 17-year playoff drought. Now, they’ve got a future Hall of Fame quarterback with nothing to show for it. No QB in NFL history has won more playoff games (eight) than Allen without an appearance in the big game. Brady is fully aware that reaching the Super Bowl is officially the year-to-year expectation.

When I ask what makes him the man for this moment, he admits he hasn’t even thought about the Lombardi Trophy.

When he won a national title at LSU, he never touched the hardware. Never even saw it up close.

He’s sure he’ll feel something if he ever hoists the sterling silver this February.

“I’ve been here long enough to see the impact that it would have on the guys that I coach and this freakin’ city,” Brady says. “That means way more to me. That drives me. I get to coach football, but the people that I get to do it for is what matters to me. And we have such a good locker room. I’ve been fortunate that I’m in a place that I already know the people, both outside the building and in the building. The expectations that this city has? It’s what I have.”

When Brady walked into new Highmark Stadium recently, he was awestruck. It hit him. For as long as this building exists, he is the one calling the first play. Briefly, Brady allows himself to look into the future. The new man in charge may be a refreshing gust of calm who embraces all JA17-centric math, who gets all 53 players to stay in attack mode, who’s prepared for every conceivable scenario.

The ball will be kicked off. The play clock will start winding down. In that exact moment, the gravity of his reality will become very real.

“I won’t be nervous,” he says with a pause. “But an emotion will hit me.”

Sleeping on a mattress — not on a hotel floor — should guarantee maximum focus. (With the help of a Fast Twich or four.)

Perhaps a variation of Dad’s triple option is the ticket.

That is, of course, assuming a backup wide receiver on the sideline isn’t overcome with the sudden urge to sprint onto the field.

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Soon, mocks become reality. A glorious thing.

Here on Real Football — with longtime NFL personnel man Jim Monos — let’s examine prospects we love and hate at the top of the draft, shall we? Be sure to use Bob McGinn’s series as a guide, too. Links are below. His reporting is stellar as always.

I’ll take the blue bloods. You cannot go wrong with Caleb Downs and Carnell Tate. Monos is high on Texas Tech edge rusher David Bailey. As for Miami’s short-armed Rueben Bain… not so much. We explain.

We also spend a good amount of time discussing Joe Brady.

At Go Long, Part I of “Joe Brady takes charge is live.” I sat down with the new Buffalo Bills head coach for two hours. His rise is fascinating.

Top of the pod, we banter on the best sports atmospheres we’ve ever witnessed.

End of the pod, we take a stab at what the Bills are looking for in the draft.

And GMs must ask themselves a very important question: Does this player truly love football?

Video and audio are both above. Thank you for fueling everything here at Go Long.

As a reminder, we’ll both be at Wayland Brewing Company in Orchard Park, NY on April 22. Let’s drink some beers on draft eve.

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Links to Bob McGinn’s 42nd annual draft series for subscribers:

• Part 1, WR: Who’s the next star wideout?

• Part 2, TE: Kenyon Sadiq and the hunt for matchup nightmares

• Part 3, T: Why Francis Mauigoa ‘n co. may define the 2026 NFL Draft

• Part 4, G/C: Why this is the year to draft a center

• Part 5, QB: The Fernando Mendoza Question

• Part 6, RB: Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love? ‘The best NFL prospect in this draft

• Part 7, DL: Secure your space-eater

• Part 8, Edge: Deep 2026 class promises to torment quarterbacks

• Part 9, LB: How should an NFL team unleash Arvell Reese?

• Part 10, CB: McCoy? Delane? Hood? Inside the debate at the top...

• Part 11, S: Why Caleb Downs, a ‘slam dunk,’ is one of the best players in the NFL Draft

• Part 12, ST: The kicking revolution is here

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ORCHARD PARK, NY — Staring down, he taps his foot on the hard carpet underneath his soles. There’s no cushion, no give at all. The sight of something so dull transports Joe Brady back in time. All the way back to Jan. 6, 2013. He was a college senior with exactly zero coaching prospects at the national coaching convention in Nashville.

He was also exceptionally naïve.

Brady knew that his buddy, DJ Mangas, had a hotel room at the convention’s Gaylord Opryland resort and figured he was good to go. The two were college teammates at William & Mary and Mangas, now coaching at D-III Hampden-Sydney, assured Brady he could tag along. Surely, this meant two beds for two guests. Yet when he showed up, Brady realized there were three Hampden-Sydney coaches bunking in this room.

He was the outsider.

There were no blankets to spare. Mangas threw him a pillow.

Brady taps his foot again.

“I was literally on this,” he says.

Somehow, Brady was more distressed during the day than at night. In his mind? Landing a full-time job was a slam dunk at this monstrous convention. Brady had two boxes of business cards printed up and Brady was already emailing his cover letter and resume to coaches coast to coast. He was the overzealous job seeker initiating conversation with everyone. In his mind? It’d only take one. Just one coach amongst the hundreds of D-I, D-II and D-III coaches in attendance to believe.

“Basically doing what the high school kid does with his highlight tape,” Brady says. “Will anybody give me an opp?”

Uh, no.

All cards, all resumes were treated with the tender love and care of junk mail and those annoying fliers pinned underneath a windshield.

He left town thinking he may never coach.

“It was depressing,” Brady says.

Thirteen years later, he landed the most prestigious sports job on the market. The college kid who just might’ve sold his soul to work 100 hours a week as a graduate assistant for Timbuktu Tech is the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills. Nine coaches in all interviewed for the position — Terry Pegula, Brandon Beane and the Bills brass chose the man in their building with zero head-coaching experience on that updated resume. Brady inherits a perennial title contender piloted by an MVP quarterback. A future Hall of Fame quarterback. He was hired to accomplish exactly what his predecessor could not.

Get to a Super Bowl. Win a Super Bowl.

How does he handle this pressure? He points to those three nights in Tennessee.

“By remembering,” he says, “that I slept on a floor in a hotel room.”

He thinks back to defying his coaches as the sixth wide receiver on the high school depth chart. It got him to college. He thinks back to teaching himself how to write scouting reports in ‘13. It got him his first job. He thinks back to how his relationship with quarterback Josh Allen first bloomed. A partnership was born.

“Don’t change who you are just because you got another opportunity,” he continues. “I work with the same mindset.”

That’s a man who walked into the building this morning wearing shorts. It was 15 degrees and snowing. Tall ‘n pale ‘n perpetually bounding room to room on the strength of far too many energy drinks, it doesn’t appear as if his eyebrows have ever tilted in 45-degree rage. Don’t let kindness fool you. In the cutthroat terrain of pro football, Joe Brady has always been a carnivore who seizes the moment. Everyone may think they know the man who’s been calling plays for 2 ½ seasons. Fans love nothing more than the mysterious unknown and Brady — by a landslide — was the most known candidate interviewing to replace Sean McDermott. News of his hiring was initially treated by locals like receiving a new pair of socks on Christmas morning. Well, if those socks were first soaked in the old stadium’s urinal trough on a hot summer day.

There’s always been more to this coach than the wide receiver screen you hate or hook and ladder you love.

Who is Joe Brady?

He’s hesitant to answer, describing himself as a “close-to-the-vest guy.” An introvert. Until one story flows to the next, and the next, and the next, and two hours pass. A portrait sharpens this conversation with Go Long. He’d go even longer if not for his assistant texting that he’s due for a meeting. Time will tell if a total reset was needed. One fact is indisputable. This 36-year-old from South Florida is a striking contrast from the man he’ll replace precisely where it matters for this team at this time. Presented with an opportunity, he does not vacillate and overanalyze until that opportunity passes him by.

Brady attacks.

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His press conferences will likely meander. Brady jokingly crowns himself the worst person to ever speak at a podium because his only goal in that setting is to protect his players.

“I’ll take the blame. I’ll eat it. I’ll praise when it’s good and, when it’s bad, I’ll take it,” Brady says. “But with my guys, I curse a lot. I’m passionate. There is an edge to me that I choose not to show to the outside world.”

That edge is the real story.

An intense confidence rooted in what nobody sees.

“I know how hard I work, how hard the coaching staff works, how hard the players work,” Brady says. “You need an edge going into that game. I’ll set my jaw. I want everybody to know that we’re going to try to make it a game they don’t want to play. I need that persona, that mindset. It’s not fake. It’s who I am.”

Hesitate for one second in high school, in college, in the pros and Brady knows for damn sure he isn’t sitting right here.

He starts the only place he can. The good ‘ol days of youth sports when Dad coached him in everything.

“Man,” Brady begins, “he was hard as hell on me.”

Joe Brady III routinely threw Joe Brady IV out of games, benched him, punished him and… yeah. It was warranted. Son was a ticking time bomb. Son admits his temper ran boiling hot because, plainly, he despised losing. Thinking back, he’s not sure parents even deploy this form of discipline anymore. But if he threw his bat in a baseball game, Brady was told to sit down and write six words repeatedly. I will not throw my bat. I will not throw my bat. I will not throw my bat. A real-life Bart Simpson in detention.

Drives home from practices and games were always contentious.

One baseball season, Brady vividly remembers hoping someone other than his own father drafted him.

Switching back ‘n forth between different sports got tiresome, so he admits his mindset “probably sucked.”

He gives Dad a hard time but relives all of this with immense reverence. Today, Brady hopes he’s home in time for his son’s bedtime routine when he knows his own father was back to throw a ball around every single day. All Joe III wanted for Joe IV is the father-son relationship he never had — and the football future he let slip way. Dad was a star running back in high school, briefly enrolled at Clemson and it didn’t last long. He planned on transferring to Florida State, to walk onto Bobby Bowden’s team, but those plans fizzled. Son only says that Dad “was a knucklehead idiot.” In sum, he didn’t have parents instructing him to suck it up through hard times.

He quit. A lifelong regret.

Eventually, Dad ran his own company but he made a point to tell Joe that if he ended up working for him at Brady Fire Equipment, then he failed as a parent. He pushed him.

Adds Brady: “He wanted me to do more.”

Day-to-day pressure that presented a young Joe Brady with a choice. He could repel, rebel, refuse such a life.

Instead, the two became exceptionally close. Brady knew his father’s heart was in the right place.

South Florida was the perfect sports breeding ground, too. This is where dreams become reality. Thinking back, one reason Brady believes he relates to players and coaches from all backgrounds today is geography. Outside of baseball tournaments in Cooperstown and North Carolina, he never left the state. All while sports constituted his entire life. His grandfather was an original season ticketholder for the Miami Dolphins. The Joes must’ve talked about something other than sports at some point in life, but nothing comes to mind.

To this day, Dad is his most trusted consigliere.

Never matters what time it is. Brady calls him after every practice. If the Bills face the New York Jets that week, they dissect the defense. Joe II isn’t afraid to offer a suggestion or two. Back when Brady was the offensive coordinator at LSU, Dad drew up a triple-option play on the board he thought his son should implement. The ball is handed off to a running back and that running back reads the defensive end. He can either keep it or pitch it back to the quarterback.

Son politely informed his father that LSU’s quarterback was Joe Burrow. Two simple words then had him fuming.

Son dismissed such a design as… “old school.”

“Man,” says Brady, shaking his head, “that pissed him off.”

That fall, naturally, Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley ran this exact play with quarterback Kyler Murray and Dad texted the video to his son quickly as his thumbs permitted. Old school, huh? Joe IV reminded him that Burrow and Murray are quite different. But later, as the Buffalo Bills’ playcaller this past season, you guessed it, Brady had running back Ty Johnson leading quarterback Josh Allen through the hole in a game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dad brought it up again.

“He’ll be wrong,” Brady says, “but I don’t know if he’ll admit when he’s wrong.”

The same day the Bills smashed those Steelers, 220 miles away, Brady’s wife gave birth to a baby girl.

He missed it all.

He wants to be a present father to his two kids. It won’t be easy as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills.

Quarterback was the position he played his entire life. Quarterback was his destiny. In another lifetime, Joe Brady and Geno Smith engage in 48-45 shootouts galore in South Florida. The two attended rival high schools. Those dreams, however, were swiftly dashed ahead of Brady’s freshman year.

Don’t pan your pregame binoculars toward Brady expecting to see whistling fastballs delivered between the numbers of receivers. To this day, he struggles to throw a football. That’s because during a camp at St. Thomas Aquinas, Brady threw out his shoulder. “Dead arm,” he calls it. He paid the price for throwing with all arm — no lower body torque at all — in both football and baseball.

This injury also served as the first major tipping point in his football life.

Brady switched to wide receiver. (“My Dad was just so pissed. You know, here’s this tall, goofy kid: ‘You’re not going to be a wideout.’”) On the JV team, Brady scored touchdowns on his first eight receptions. (Dad was now all-in.) Moving up to the varsity team, there was only one problem. Into his junior year, during a camp in Orlando, a coach called for five wides and didn’t mention his name. The coaches at Everglades High School did not view Brady as one of the five best receivers on his own team. “This is not good,” Brady told himself.

He didn’t transfer, instead choosing to stay ready.

The first drive of the first game that 2006 season — against local power Chaminade–Madonna — one receiver suffered an injury. And before a coach on the sideline even called the name for a replacement, Joe Brady rushed onto the field. Didn’t think twice. Didn’t care. All animalistic instinct told him to go. First play, the quarterback threw him a hitch for eight yards. Brady stayed in the game. Brady caught another pass, then another, and led his team in receiving this 34-13 defeat.

Yes, on the sideline, he was chastised for insubordination.

Yes, he was sent right back to the bottom of the depth chart into Week 2.

He proved a point, too.

That week, Brady was eating a bowl of pasta and meatballs when a coach informed him he’d be starting because a handful of his teammates got in trouble. He scored a touchdown in a 14-7 win over Nova, again led Everglades in receiving and — suddenly — the name Joe Brady ranked near the top of receiving stats in talent-rich Broward County.

Division I football became a realistic destination. He was even asked to do an interview on Miami television.

After fielding questions from a local station, walking back, Brady’s hamstring and glute felt tight. He didn’t think it was a big deal. Brady tried to practice and informed his coach he couldn’t even move. He underwent testing at the hospital, was sent home and nobody was too concerned. The next morning, he tried to get out of bed and fell. He couldn’t even stand on that leg. More testing revealed that Brady needed to be transported to the children’s hospital. ASAP. He had a staph infection, MRSA, and it had gotten into his bloodstream.

On the drive, he asked a paramedic if this was bad. The gentleman did exactly nothing to quell his fears. “There’s a chance you can lose your leg,” he deadpanned.

Brady freaked out, understandably.

“Wait, what?!” he replied. Don’t tell me that!’”

Here at Bills HQ, he points through the window toward a nearby car. Walking that short distance, about 20 feet, would take him 15 agonizing minutes. Nobody knows what caused the infection.

From the hospital that Friday night, he watched his own interview on TV.

Then, the game.

It was heartbreaking.

“For me, I had football,” Brady says. “I was so proud of staying with it, staying locked with it, finally getting an opportunity to go, staying ready when my time came. I was ready. And then finally when I was able to get the opportunity, it was taken away.”

He spent two full weeks in the hospital and lost close to 15 pounds. But with loss, came a totally new perspective on life: Appreciation. One sprint onto the field led to one ball thrown his direction and a sliver of success. Brady realized right then just how much he loved football. Needed football. So he quit baseball altogether to pour all focus, all attention into excelling on the gridiron at Everglades.

“A huge moment in my career,” Brady says, “that is so small.”

One school took notice: the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. On his visit, Brady watched highlights of future NFL assistant coach Chad Hall tearing up Notre Dame for 142 yards on 32 carries. Head coach Troy Calhoun had just taken over after coordinating the Houston Texans offense and made it seem as if the Falcons were modernizing into a pro-style offense that’d allow him to flourish out wide.

Brady chose the Air Force and, soon enough, was doing running back drills himself.

He also had broken his wrist in a high school all-star game before stepping foot on campus. Brady didn’t tell anybody because he figured he could tough this out. His first scrimmage with the Falcons, he broke it again and needed surgery.

Football — again — was snatched from him. Only, this time, there was no kicking his feet up on a hospital bed. Brady continued to push his body through hell as a cadet in basic training. He admits he didn’t exactly do his research on day-to-day life at the Air Force. Brady didn’t even eat the first three days of basic training because he didn’t know how to properly ask for food.

Fun was limited. Military life is not the normal freshman college experience.

“But I wish everybody would have to go through a basic training,” Brady says. “When you go from being an 18-year-old to being on your own, and you can’t think for the next eight weeks, it breaks you a little bit. So much of who I am was a product of my upbringing and then the rebranding once I went to the academy.”

If football was going to stay central to his life, though, another aggressive move on the chess board was required. ASAP. One member of Brady’s squadron had the same football aspirations as him, suffered an injury, then never sniffed the field again. A cadet who now attended the Air Force for military purposes only. It spooked Brady. He was here for one reason — football — and feared future recruiting waves would wash him away, too. So, he decided to transfer.

Dad was livid. Dad saw his own life repeating in his son. “Like, ‘Oh my God, this is my life. I can’t F up my son’s life in the same moment,’” Brady recalls. But if there’s a theme to his rise, it’s the melodic blend of hardship and instinctual conviction.

With Dad’s assistance — perhaps too much assistance, he jokes — Brady transitioned to William & Mary.

Leaning back, Brady cannot help but crack a smile and laugh. He did not suddenly live happily ever after.

One week into spring ball under Jimmye Laycock at this FCS school, he broke his foot running a route… against air. Because of course he did. Brady knows how this all sounds and agrees he was an injury-riddled mess. Initially, he thought this was only a sprained ankle. As the new guy going full Rudy Ruettiger to make an impression on the staff, no way was Brady reporting this injury to the training staff. Fresh off that broken wrist, he didn’t want anyone thinking he was brittle. He played doctor. He treated himself. Inside his dorm room, Brady Googled various remedies and learned all about RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) in a slapdash attempt to fix himself.

Soon, Brady had no choice but to seek help.

He spent all of spring ball in a walking boot.

The good news? Brady never suffered another injury. Bad news? Brady barely sniffed the field. His name was never invoked by coaches for dynamite plays to be deployed on Saturdays. Rather, a hint of disdain on the scout team. When William & Mary prepared to face the ACC’s North Carolina Tar Heels, Brady snatched an in-breaking route and defensive coordinator Bob Shoop lost his mind. Brady imitates Shoop’s scratchy voice here to a T. “Repeat the play!” the coach shouted. “If Joe Braaaaa-deee is catching balls on us, what do you think North Carolina’s going to do?!”

Says Brady: “I was like, ‘Damn, Shoop!’”

NFL ball was not an option. Sorry, pops.

In four seasons with the Tribe, he caught all of three passes for 34 yards.

“Balling,” he says. “I can name all those catches.”

When Brady thought he’d finally get a shot at substantive offensive snaps, into his junior year, William & Mary brought in a wide receiver who was clearly more talented: Tre McBride. Rather than treat McBride as a dragon to slay or toil in self-pity, Brady (again) manufactured an opportunity. He genuinely tried to coach up a kid out to render him obsolete. McBride was skeptical. At first, he couldn’t trust a teammate who was this helpful, this generous. But for Brady, the relationship was an awakening. He understood exactly how to run routes — releases off the line, stems at the top of routes, etc. — but physically could not do it.

Now, in a way, he could play vicariously through a 6-foot, 210-pound weapon from McDonough, Ga. McBride heeded every morsel of advice, took Brady’s spot, and blossomed into one of the school’s best offensive players ever. After catching 64 passes for 809 yards with four scores, he was drafted by the Tennessee Titans and kicked around the league for five teams.

Too often, Brady would get knocked off a route, ask “What should I do differently?” and simply hear a coach tell him to do something different.

He embraced life teaching the why. This was a calling.

“The moment,” Brady says, “I was like, ‘Alright, I need to coach.’”

Of course, Brady was also a double major at William & Mary, the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States next to Harvard. This school’s been around since 1693. Undergrads don’t kill themselves over midterms and dissertations here to become a coach. They’re seeking six- and seven-figure jobs at Fortune 500 companies, not shameless QC gigs demanding 100 hours a week for humiliating pay. Sane third parties on campus — professors, classmates, etc. — considered this a harebrained master plan.

“Like, what a waste of education,” Brady says. “And I don’t mean that in a negative way. But you don’t go to William & Mary to be like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go be a coach now.’ I could have just done that anywhere.”

Yet, he craved the sport’s entry-level serfdom and all insomnia, all microwavable dinners that came with it.

Which brings us back to that concrete-soft carpet.

He’s one of 32 head coaches. Elite company. The face of an organization. But if this was Joe the Janitor or Joey Ticket Sales, there’s a good chance a member of the Buffalo Bills’ security staff would stop this employee in his tracks on the walkway to ask a.) why he’s up at 3:20 a.m.; and b.) why he’s wearing shorts in freezing temps.

This is no performance for social media. It’s who Joe Brady’s always been. Ask any player inside this Buffalo Bills locker room about Brady and they’ll inevitably cite his magnetic energy. How he’s a relentless tidal wave of positivity.

For a team led by the same man the last nine years, it’s severely needed. And natural.

I ask Brady where this all comes from, and he points to this all being an innate passion.

“When people are around me,” he says, “I think they can feel that. I’m not trying to be energetic. I’m not trying to be a hoo-rah guy. I’m trying to be myself. But people can feel that. I’m getting to live my dreams and do exactly what I want to do and, honestly, where I want to do it. That makes it easy. You get to come to work and it’s not like I have to be like, ‘Ugh. Here we go. I’m going to have to put on a show today.’ Yeah, I drink a lot of caffeine, but there’s no fake…”

A lot of caffeine, as in… how much today exactly? Well, Brady needed to get his blood drawn so it’s been a mild morning. An espresso, caffeine gum and, finally, Gatorade Fast Twitch No. 1 are powering him through. The caffeine element of this energy drink beverage is real — each bottle contains 200 mg of caffeine. He’ll typically drink three or four per day. And two Espresso’s. And two MEG Caffeine Gum pieces.

That’s the offseason.

During the season, those numbers all go up.

Brady does replenish his system with ample H2O, and the team nutritionist assures he’s got nothing to worry about. The same probably cannot be said for the coach calling himself “C12” in Foxborough.

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Moments later, he’s still thinking about that “energy” question and pinpoints a day he’ll never forget — Jan. 6, 2013 — because it was the same day rookie Robert Griffin Jr. tore up his knee in the NFC wild card. His buddy, DJ Mangas, grew up a diehard Washington Redskins fan and they watched this game on at TV at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville on Day 1 of that American Football Coach Association (AFCA) convention.

Those fruitless three days were the turning point of his entire life.

Mangas, a year older, was already coaching quarterbacks at D-III Hampden-Sydney. Brady toted a bag of nice clothes, business cards and a notebook with the expectation, teetering on a full-fledged guarantee, that he’d land a job of his own in this psychotic world of coaching. Upon arrival, he realized he wouldn’t even have his own bed. Two of Mangas’ fellow coaches packed in the room, too.

Hampden-Sydney DC Wes Dodson had booked the room for himself, Mangas and fellow assistant Ahmaad Smith.

The convention rotates to a new city each year. Many speeches are given. Notepad in hand, Brady took copious amounts of notes. (Still has those notes, too.) He remembers Shannon Dawson, West Virginia’s offensive coordinator, discussing wide receiver technique. The previous year, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey tore up the Big 12. A coach from North Dakota State, Craig Bohl, was honored as the FCS Coach of the Year. At one point, the ex-William & Mary DC Shoop took a crew to a nice breakfast spot. He now coached at nearby Vanderbilt.

Wisdom was shared by all. Brady was a sponge.

Brady was also here with one goal in mind: Get a damn job.

He received a tinge of interest from FCS Marist and D-II Findlay (Ohio) before both admitted they couldn’t seriously consider him because he was still in school.

Room to room, Brady encountered mobs of young coaches gunning for jobs and promotions — a humbling reminder that he was not alone. Any 23-year-old seeking a job can feel like a guppy lost in a sea of candidates. Schools and schools of coaches swim into the same speeches… engage in the same small talk… take the same notes. An intimidating scene. Those pre-NIL days, stacks of cash weren’t piled in the coffers. “Analyst” positions weren’t concocted out of thin air. Colleges had a finite number of positions available.

“Oh my goodness,” says Dodson, now the head coach at D-III LaGrange. “There’s just so many people. That’s what people don’t understand. The coaching profession is not easy to get into because there’s more coaches than there are jobs.”

Dodson remembers booking the room. Details are hazy. He, too, had slept on his share of floors and chairs over the years. But even though he had coached at William & Mary himself in the past and his stepson played at the school, Dodson never met Brady before. Never even spoke to him before the kid showed up.

Brady’s energy stood out. He was “on the run” nonstop.

To this day, with pride, Dodson tells colleagues: “Joe Brady slept on my floor.”

“You can tell people that are always willing to just go and talk to people — they’re going to make something of themselves,” Dodson says. “They’re not afraid to go get something if they want it. That’s what you do as a young coach. Any way you can find a room to sleep in, you find a way. And that’s what he’s done. He found a way.”

Still, in the moment, the trip felt like one gigantic swing and miss. Nobody at this de facto job fair understood the Real Joe Brady. Upon landing back to Williamsburg, Va., he could’ve pivoted and put his education to use. Coaches across America most certainly threw his business cards into the trash. He only received a handful of automatic replies on email. Three collegiate receptions at a small school don’t exactly send a bat signal. Everyone in life must come to grips with football passing them by. It’s sad.

Yet, Brady did not bail. Brady refused to stay discouraged for long. Much like a 17-year-old quarterback on the other side of the country, in Firebaugh, Calif., reaching out to every Division I football coach he possibly could and hearing nothing back this same year.

He took a deep breath and looked around. The Tribe hired a new OC in Kevin Rogers this spring. Brady viewed this as another chance to learn. The longtime coach had Donovan McNabb at Syracuse and Brett Favre with the Minnesota Vikings. Brady loitered around Rogers’ office as much possible, soaking up as much knowledge as he could. Right around then, one of the Tribe’s assistant coaches on defense, John Bowes, took a new job at Fordham.

Brady walked into Laycock’s office to say he wanted a job. “He laughed at me,” Brady recalls, “and told me to get the hell out of his office. ‘Beat it geek,’ in so many words.” It wasn’t personal. Laycock explained to his backup wide receiver that this isn’t something he does. Never before had Laycock hired one of his players directly to the staff.

“Well,” Brady told him, “I’d be a great first.’”

Brady kept hanging around… hanging around… and chipped in with spring ball.

The reason Laycock shunned his own players fresh off the graduation stage is that he didn’t want assistants coaching their buddies. He believed in a healthy separation between church and state. There’s a first for everything. Both DC Scott Boone and D-Line coach Trevor Andrews thought Brady had potential. Put him on defense, they told Laycock, and he would be with a totally different crew. Boone saw a promising “football junkie.” The head coach started warming up to the idea and, as graduation loomed, informed Brady that he was bringing in three coaches to essentially audition for a linebackers position. He’d be one of the candidates.

At some point, Laycock would then decide who gets the job.

He told Brady to get the heck out of dodge after graduating. Relax. Recharge his batteries.

Yeah, right. No chance was Brady going to decelerate now.

All coaches on staff hit the recruiting trail and Brady stayed right inside the football offices preparing for his one shot. He studied the Tribe’s playbook to biblical proportions, teaching himself defensive football. He looked ahead, too. Brady authored detailed scouting reports on every single one of William & Mary’s 2013 opponents. He knew diddly poo about playing linebacker, but Brady applied what he did know — offense — to each report. The Tribe’s first opponent was West Virginia. The year prior, his old high school foe in Miramar, Fla. (Geno Smith) lit up defenses. He explained how the Mountaineers incinerated defenses.

Brady knows himself, too. He would’ve gone insane back home in waiting mode.

All instinct told him to stay right there inside those offices and teach himself how to break down tape.

“So when those coaches came back, everything was ready for them,” Brady says. “Just go. Just go. Why am I going to go away and let two other guys have an opportunity at the job?’ And I didn’t sit there and think like, ‘Oh, if I’m sticking around, it’s going to be my job.’ But, one, where am I going to go? I get to be in the office and learn the defense. I looked at it as, ‘Here I am as an offensive coach. I can bring value. I might not bring any value as a defense. I probably didn’t know anything like looking back. But I thought I could bring value as an offensive-minded guy on defense.”

Nobody told Brady to sprint onto the field for that eight-yard hitch at Everglades.

Nobody advised he sleep on a hotel floor.

Nobody made him stay at school and prepare scouting reports.

He sees an opportunity, smells blood, leaves zero doubt.

“I got the job, basically, by not leaving,” Brady says. “I was the grinder. You figure out what everybody needs and do that. Your job is to try to make everybody’s life easier.”

When coaches returned to campus, the reports were done. They were stunned. Brady remembers Boone putting it bluntly to the head boss. “Shit,” he said, “we might as well hire him.”

Brady watched clinic tape of Penn State’s Tom Bradley to learn this funky new position. He had talent in his room. Luke Rhodes has been the Indianapolis Colts’ long-snapper for 10 years and counting. It also helped that the DC, Boone, coached linebackers.

Cite the harsh reality of this industry to Boone — how those clinics are flooded with candidates — and he interjects.

“There’s a bunch of guys that want to coach, but there’s not that many guys who want to be a coach,” says Boone, now a special teams coach at Duke. “We talk about it all the time. There’s guys who are fans with whistles and guys who are coaches. And guys who are coaches don’t get caught up in all the things: the gear, the trips, the travel, the hotel. They get caught up in the ball.

“You can’t dip your toe in it. You’ve got to jump in with your full body. And Joe — early — was one of those guys.”

Endorsing Brady was a no-brainer — because of this work ethic — but then his offensive acumen popped. Defensive coaches thought they knew what offenses were trying to accomplish on certain plays. Inside meetings, Boone says, the young Brady often corrected them. “That’s not really what is happening,” he’d say. “They’re doing this to create this matchup.” He was right. That season, William & Mary’s defense held opponents to 10 points or less in six games.

Boone saw a young coach dying to learn and evolve. Every day.

“That’s probably why his track has been as fast as it has,” he says.

No kidding. When Boone headed to Nevada into 2014, Brady assumed autonomy over those linebackers for a full season and his career then took off like a rocket ship.

To Penn State as a grad assistant. Shoop, the coach needling him as a player, was the DC who helped bring him to Happy Valley.

To the New Orleans Saints as an offensive assistant. He treasured access to an all-time great coach (Sean Payton) and quarterback (Drew Brees).

To LSU as the pass game coordinator. Pressure was high. Heading into that 2019 season, Brady knew that his boss, head coach Ed Orgeron, was squarely on the hot seat with an 11-11 record through two seasons. If his offense stunk it up? Coach O was getting fired. Brady had never called one play before in his life. “Just like that guy running out on the field,” Brady recalls. “Don’t change who you are just because you got another opportunity.” LSU humiliated defenses weekly en route to a national title. Burrow enjoyed one of the finest seasons in college football history. Just like that, he was the new boy wonder in this profession.

To the Carolina Panthers as an OC. The same season his greatest weapon (Christian McCaffrey) barely played and his quarterback play was bottom tier, Brady squeezed 1,000-yard seasons out of four players: D.J. Moore, Robbie Anderson, Curtis Samuel and Mike Davis. But this 1 ½-year run was a crash-landing to that proverbial carpet. A nightmare. Brady’s tone changes from biographical to introspective thinking back to his time as the youngest active offensive coordinator in the league. Ego entered the equation.

The 30-year-old Brady thought he needed to act a certain way and admits he did not make his job about the players. Scheme dictated all in his mind.

“If I try to be someone that I’m not, if I try to act like someone that I’m not, if I try to think I have all the answers, I’ll fail,” Brady says. “And in elements of myself, I did that in Carolina. I told myself if I ever get that opportunity again, I’m not going to do that.

“That’s not who I am. Don’t get me wrong, I love going into the office and drawing stuff up. But when I’m with my guys, I need them to know that it’s not about the scheme. We’re going to win because of you guys.”

Coaches can go through their 30s, their 40s, their 50s and never accept that players should take precedence over plays. This concept is a central theme in Michael Silver’s excellent “The Why is Everything.” Kyle Shanahan quickly gained notoriety as the sport’s most inventive play designer, but it took years for the San Francisco 49ers brainiac to value the gifts of individual players ahead of those X’s and O’s devised in the middle of the night. Bring up Shanahan’s name and Brady points out a key distinction.

Shanahan was winning and winning before finally evolving.

“I had to fail for that to happen,” Brady says. “How many times did Shanahan fail? The best thing that ever happened to me was getting fired.”

Brady did not want to chase another OC gig. Not yet.

He needed a total reset and coaching quarterbacks for the Buffalo Bills made perfect sense. Everyone else in town — OC Ken Dorsey, QB Josh Allen, etc. — knew the offense better than him, which forced Brady to open his eyes and reexamine offensive football. One thing went right in Carolina. Sam Darnold, one of his rotating Panthers QBs, must’ve enjoyed something about his coaching. Because if Darnold trashed his name to Allen, a close buddy, no way he gets this job.

Heading into Orchard Park, Brady knew all about Allen, the player.

He didn’t know Allen, the person.

That changed immediately.

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Read Part II here.

Related:

Good morning, Go Long World.

A programming note to share.

Soon, we’ll post a two-part series on the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills: Joe Brady. After sitting down with the 36-year-old head coach for two hours at One Bills Drive, a fresh portrait emerges. He opens on all of the defining moments of his life, from his Florida roots to William & Mary to Orchard Park. It’s clear why the organization chose this man at this time.

I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Subscribers can access in full.

I want NFL longform.

I want to grow Go Long.

Until then? Feel free to catch up on everything that led the Bills to this point at the links below. Since launching in November 2020, we’ve strived to offer extensive reporting and a raw perspective on this Bills team banging on the championship door.

Brady’s been chosen as the man to smash that Super Bowl wall.

The Pressure is on Josh Allen

‘It was a bad, bad situation:’ Inside the Buffalo Bills’ fateful 13 Seconds

The McDermott Problem

• Part I: Blame Game

• Part II: Lost in translation

• Part III: Let Josh be Josh

Smash the Window

Part I: ‘Don’t ever stop’

Part II: The Super Bowl Plan

‘I bleed for that win:’ Our 1 on 1 with Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott

Why was Sean McDermott Fired?

‘He wants to win the whole damn thing:’ Inside the Buffalo Bills’ decision to hire Joe Brady as HC

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