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

The closer you look, the more it's crystal clear why Terry Pegula, Brandon Beane and the Bills replaced Sean McDermott with Joe Brady. We take you inside the interview process at Go Long.

Feb 02, 2026

ORCHARD PARK, NY — Before the news lit up your cell phone, Brandon Beane knew for damn sure many of you would not be happy. He was briefed on public perception. Many outsiders would inevitably view the announcement of Joe Brady as the next Buffalo Bills head coach as status quo. Safe. Brady was the familiar name, the author of wide-receiver screens making fans go hoarse with rage.

All while the organization was being scolded by talking heads over words in a press conference.

All while the firing of Sean McDermott was treated as a national tragedy in the 716. There were petitions signed, ice sculptures erected and even one local news segment featuring a psychologist explaining how players could possibly cope with the loss of their coach.

Beane, of course, became the source of rampant and ravenous conspiracy theories.

The instinct for anyone in Beane’s position — promoted to director of football operations — is damage control. Seek the PR win. Grovel to all gripping pitchforks.

At 10 a.m., the Bills conducted that viral presser bastardized ‘round the sports world. At 1 p.m., they met with Brady for four hours. They met with eight more candidates, Zoomed with Brady once more and offered the 36-year-old offensive coordinator the job. We’re sitting inside an office at One Bills Drive after the dust settles and Beane admits he still hasn’t caught his breath. About an hour into conversation, I relay approval ratings to him. One poll conducted by a media outlet in town revealed 8 percent of fans liked the hire. Another was stuck on 7 percent before inching up to 8 percent.

Beane doesn’t look surprised at all.

He knew there would be intense backlash. He’s been here before.

“And to me?” he says. “Fuck the outside. It’s about the right selection for this team. And if we win, they’ll love it. It’s the same thing I said when I took Josh Allen. If I’m wrong, the moving company will be at my house. So, I understand. And I’m not going to have regret of choosing someone to appease the outside if I thought it should have been something different. If I’m wrong, I’ll fucking take my job and fucking go home.

“I don’t want to be wrong — see him go somewhere else — when my gut told me it was Joe Brady. I’m never going to do that.

“I would love for everyone to cheer every move, but it’s not about winning the press conference. It’s about winning games over there.”

He points toward the Bills’ new stadium out the window.

He’s not done speaking on this matter.

“If we do that, everyone will cheer. If I selected who they want me to select or the outside noise — whatever those ratings were — and we don’t win? Guess who’s going to fucking hear about it? Me. So if I’m going to get yelled at, I’m going to get yelled at for choosing the guy that I believe can do this.”

No, the Bills are not looking back. They got their guy.

He drinks far too many bottles of Gatorade Fast Twitch energy drinks. He walks into work wearing shorts, negative wind chill be damned. He’s been known as a gust of positivity through all hallways as an assistant coach the last four years. Now? Joe Brady is the 21st head coach in Bills history. The 20 men before him did not face expectations this steep. Arguably no current coach in the entire NFL faces pressure like Brady in 2026.

McDermott could not get it done. His message grew stale.

So, the Bills reorganized their hierarchy.

At his emotional introductory press conference, Brady strummed five main chords.

He mentioned the word “alignment” eight times. He preached accountability. He said his defense will attack. He promised to bring a new energy to this team.

He assured the world these Bills will flow through quarterback Josh Allen.

None of this was Chat GPT gobbledygook. These words were chosen for good reason. Everything Brady said was both a hint back at where these Bills have been the last decade and where they’re heading into the future. To learn more, Go Long sat down with two of the chief decision-makers in those head-coach interviews: the GM Beane and president of business operations Pete Guelli. We also checked back in with team sources witnessing this transition firsthand.

The Bills cast an extremely wide net. With Allen on the interview committee, they interviewed three candidates in Orchard Park: Brady, Brian Daboll and Lou Anarumo. Then they sat down with six more from Boca Raton, Fla.: Philip Rivers, Grant Udinski, Davis Webb, Anthony Weaver, Anthony Lynn and Nathan Scheelhaase (virtual). Three times Brady referred to his interview as “intense.” He was not treated as a known commodity — the Bills’ brass grilled him, the Bills got to know the person from scratch. And the more we peel back the layers on those buzz words at that presser, the more it’s obvious why Brady was the pick.

This coach might’ve been around the last four seasons but he’s the diametric opposite of his predecessor where it matters most.

Now, the Bills believe a Super Bowl is possible.

Inside the room

Interviews were conversational and comfortable, yet admittedly “intimidating” by nature. Guelli recreates the scene. When candidates stepped into the room, they sat at the head of a long table. Owner Terry Pegula was at the other end. Guelli was directly to the candidate’s left with assistant GM Brian Gaine, Beane, Pegula, assistant GM Terrance Gray, Allen and Laura Pegula all forming a U-shape.

The quarterback’s presence also sent an obvious message: this is the center of your new universe.

Guelli got a kick out of blowback over hiring an internal candidate because — if it was that simplistic? — he sure wishes he got a week of his life back. “It was nonstop,” says this team’s head of business, “from start to finish.” He’s been involved in interviews for coaches, GMs and execs over his years with the New York Giants and Charlotte Hornets. To him, this search might’ve been the most “deliberate” and “strategic” of them all. Nodding toward Beane, he says the GM never deviated from Interview No. 1 to No. 9. Everyone asked pre-written questions and dialogue naturally flowed. They were determined to learn more about both the coach and the human.

From there, they shifted to game management and psychological evaluations.

“You better be prepared when you walk in that room,” Guelli says, “because questions can come from anywhere.”

The goal was to treat Brady as a blank state. The Bills acted as if they hardly knew anything about him.

Bare minimum, Beane knew the Bills owed Brady an interview. He also interviewed with the Las Vegas Raiders and Baltimore Ravens. One year prior, he turned down the New Orleans Saints’ head job. Beane essentially went full Men in Black, taking a neuralyzer to everyone’s brains. He didn’t want anyone in the room harboring one inkling of a preconceived notion. This was no “promotion.”

“This is not taking the assistant ticket director and making him the head of ticket sales,” Beane says. “Joe was either out of a job or he’s the head coach. A new coach can come in and do his own thing. There’s no guarantee Joe Brady had a job. It was important that Joe was viewed as an NFL coach. He just happened to be in our building the last four years.”

During the season, Beane always viewed Brady as an OC and an OC only. He never spoke to Brady about sports science, the offseason weight program or how he’d run practice. He’d simply ask how Free Agent X would fit into his offense or if Allen was going off script when he took off on specific plays the previous Sunday. This was the first time Beane listened to Brady’s vision for the entire team.

Brady detailed how he’d change the offense and defense. Brady hammered the fact that he wants to put opposing offensive coordinators under stress — the first time the GM heard a coach put it this way. (More of this later.) By the end of that first interview, Beane felt good about where this interview process was heading.

Adds Beane: “I’m like, ‘Well if I fucked up the other eight, we got a guy that can be a head coach and can win.’”

Daboll was solid. Anarumo, too. With nasty weather raging through Western New York, the Bills headed to Pegula’s office in Florida for the rest.

Rivers’ name was a shock to the football world. When Beane got wind that the longtime QB might be interested in coaching, he figured why not. Notepad in hand, Rivers interview was a home run. Beane calls him a “football savant” — the GM took a ton of notes himself. Beane gave Rivers 48 hours to contemplate whether or not he’d want to pursue this whole coaching thing and Rivers called the GM back in near tears. His wife was on-board, but Rivers (a father of 10) couldn’t fully commit. The two sides did build a relationship that could lead to an opportunity in the future. Lynn brought a unique perspective from his Bills days a decade prior and coaching the Los Angeles Chargers. Beane also says that Weaver “was freaking really strong” and should be the head coach of a team.

This audible to Florida had a silver lining — they were all sequestered. There were no distractions at all. This was all they were thinking about and talking about. All along, they learned a hell of a lot about themselves through all nine chats. Weaver played Allen twice a year. Anarumo beat Buffalo in a playoff game. Lynn nearly got the job back in 2017. Webb played in Buffalo from ‘19 to ‘21. Both Webb and Udinski had just faced the Bills’ defense in the playoffs.

“I don’t think you can underestimate what you're hearing from these guys,” Guelli says, “and the perspective they’re giving you on your organization and how they attack it.”

As the first man to interview, Brady was at an inherent disadvantage. Recency bias is real. When the Bills talked to him a second time — via Zoom — Beane wanted everyone to be direct. The GM told everyone to leave no question unanswered because he didn’t want anyone walking out of the room wishing they asked a candidate something. Questions got so intense that Guelli felt the need to apologize afterward.

“I went after him,” Guelli says. “I wasn’t afraid to ask him anything.”

Guelli deals with the dollars. He bluntly informed candidates they’d be CEOs of a franchise worth billions. What makes you think you’re ready for this? he asked. He laid out everything that goes into breaking in a new stadium and the need to have tough conversations through the season.

Adversity is a guarantee. Fail to meet that adversity head-on and you’re toast.

Through it all, the Bills were blown away by Brady’s CEO-like approach to the job. He grasped the “owner to GM to coach to quarterback dynamic,” Guelli adds. He knew exactly how he’d use sports science to tweak the team’s practice schedule. Injuries have been a problem. Familiarity with the organization obviously helped. Brady even offered a few thoughts on the business side.

“He understood that big picture,” Guelli says, “and how it’s all connected.”

Beane, now overseeing the entire football operation, was the point man and everyone was welcomed to jump in with questions on any topic.

Brady was dressed to the nines. Weaver, too. Rivers, Daboll, Lynn went no suit.

There were no lunch breaks. About an hour and a half in, they’d all take five minutes for a bathroom break. Then, questions resumed for another hour and a half before the Bills ushered in VP of Football Research Dennis Lock to lead the game management portion of the interview. Locke administered this test in-person for the interviews in Orchard Park and via Zoom for the ones in Florida.

A crucial segment for this team.

McDermott won 66 percent of his games in the regular season.

McDermott, in the playoffs, too often combusted. His tightness has strangulated Buffalo at the worst possible moments. Several sources have explained how his nerves become his players nerves. McDermott can meticulously plot how he wants a program to run over the course of days, weeks, months. The sport’s most consequential decisions, however, must be made in the blink of an eye. Overthinking dooms.

The Bills somehow needed to simulate the sport’s inevitable pressure-packed moments.

Beane couldn’t put a headset on candidates and simulate 70,000 screaming fans, but one idea came to him from the team’s quarterback search in 2018.

Back then, the ex-OC Daboll taught QBs plays in the classroom. Allen, Baker Mayfield, Josh Rosen, whoever was in town took notes and was then given 30 seconds on the board to master what they were just taught. “It’s high speed,” Beane says. “They just came out of the huddle and they’ve got 30 seconds to do it.” Multiple quarterbacks could not replicate Daboll’s play design in 30 seconds. Allen clocked in at 21 and 22 seconds on his two attempts.

Simply asking a coach how he handles game management wasn’t enough. Those answers can be polished in advance.

Instead, the Bills began by asking a coach if they had an aggressive or conservative mindset. “Aggressive” was obviously a go-to answer. Locke would then put candidates through a 30-minute test full of specific, rapid-fire scenarios.

Some of those coaches claiming to be aggressive were exposed as conservative.

“It was interesting,” Beane says. “You’re observing. You’re paying attention to who’s nailing these, who’s not. And not all of ‘em are right or wrong. Some are, some aren’t. And then a couple hours later, Dennis would send me an email with his breakdown: ‘Hey, this guy is very analytical. He gets it. We won’t need to do a lot with him. He’ll be ready.’ Or, ‘this guy said he was aggressive, but all his answers are conservative. He’s also lacking here. We’re going to need to do some work, but we can get there.’ And there was one or two where he’s like, ‘I have concerns about the game management piece if this were to be our coach.’”

Brady passed with flying colors.

Brady also aced the most important aspect of his interview.

He understands precisely why the Bills are a year-in, year-out Super Bowl contender.

Give a gift subscription

Priorities

He leaned toward the players seated in the front row and got emotional. Joe Brady imagined a world in which he’s cheering on the defense in practice. He cannot wait to build relationships with players on that side of the ball.

“Everything I am is because of you guys,” Brady said. “All I ever think about is making sure that you guys are successful. It is not about me. It is always about you guys. And lastly, I talked about love. Josh always says it: ‘If you love someone, let ‘em know. I love you guys.”

Later, he made the team’s focus crystal clear.

Asked about Josh Allen, he chose his words deliberately.

“Every decision this organization makes,” said Brady, again turning toward his quarterback, “is with the thought of Josh Allen and the players in mind. I’d be crazy not to.”

Brady brought up his time with the New Orleans Saints. Up close, he witnessed how Sean Payton and co. made every decision with Drew Brees at the forefront of mind. The 13-time Pro Bowler was “thought about” and “talked about” 24/7/365. Payton, a man who does not lack ego, understood Brees was his team’s energy source.

Brees had New Orleans on his back.

Allen has Buffalo on his. “A weight” Brady said he cannot fathom.

“Everything I think about is trying to find ways to put him in a position to have success,” the new Bills head coach continued. “Because that’s all I care about with him. Josh Allen is the best player in the NFL and I have to grow. … I have so much love for that man right there, and all I want is him to get everything that he deserves.”

He made it clear — nonstop — who served as the center of this team’s universe.

All swooning was no accident. Privately and publicly, for too long, the man he’s replacing did not prioritize his quarterback. He was shockingly myopic. When Allen decided to build a house in WNY, one coach recalled an irate McDermott barking: “Tell Josh to stop worrying about that fucking house! We’ve got the season coming up. When the season starts, that needs to be (ex-girlfriend) Brittany’s issue and not fucking his.”

McDermott, conversely, believed the Bills ran through McDermott. By the time he tried to change — and asked Allen to do snow angels on live TV, etc. — it was too forced, too unnatural. Nobody completely changes who they are at age 50. This was the same coach who’d tear apart Cam Newton to Bills assistants for, in his mind, ruining the Panthers’ shot at a Super Bowl.

One former Bills assistant put it best in saying McDermott didn’t understand there are only a half-dozen humans walking the planet who are franchise quarterbacks whereas there are hundreds of coaches. “You keep poking one of the six,” he added, “and they’re going to replace you and go to pick one of the hundreds that are still walking around out there.” One ex-Bills player said the coach should write his QB a “Thank You” letter once a week for earning him millions of dollars. This relationship wasn’t outright toxic… but it wasn’t great. Certainly not what’s sold at press conferences. Back in 2023, this player called the situation a “ticking time bomb.”

The disconnect festered because, to a fault, Allen has never been one to storm into any boss’ office and demand changes. This Firebaugh, Calif., farm kid who generated all of zero stars as a recruit and wrote an email to 1,000 colleges after JUCO never cusses out teammates.

Eventually, Pegula noticed. Pegula grew to realize Allen is the star of the show and offered Allen a (literal) seat at the (literal) table. He saw the raw emotion inside the visitor’s locker room in Denver and encouraged his most valuable employee to speak up on the direction of the organization.

If Buffalo’s sole mission was to hire Josh’s Guy, Beane adds, the easy answer would’ve been Daboll. They were thick as blood. In the end, the Bills did not overcompensate to this extreme. How close were Allen and Brady? After Daboll left for the New York Giants, Beane believes Allen was careful not to allow himself to get too close to him. He could still rifle off all the crude jokes he did with “Dabes,” but the quarterback was careful. He maintained a buffer because he assumed good times were bound to end. Good teams with a defensive-minded head coach all burn through OCs.

“In his mind, it was: ‘I’m only going to keep these coordinators so long,’” Beane says. “And it hurt him when Daboll left as the mentor, the father figure, the friend. My approach was that 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.”

No wonder Allen looked like a kid visiting Disney World in that first row of the presser.

Now, these two have a chance to grow together for the long haul.

Allen served as an extension of the locker room in these interviews. He’d know how these candidates would (or would not) connect with players. Beane told his QB to let him know if he got a bad feeling from anyone. He did not. There are certainly players who enjoyed McDermott as their coach and saw real evolution to his coaching style. I caught up with one longtime vet last week who only had nice things to say about the head coach.

Others believe his voice grew stale and saw the need for new energy. Positive energy.

Asked about Brady, Bills offensive lineman Alec Anderson said the quiet part out loud.

“He wants us to know that we don’t have to have our assholes so tight around him all time,” Anderson said. “We can go walk around and be our personalities. He always says in offensive meetings, ‘Be you.’ If you’re not a horrible, disgusting human being, let it show. Everyone’s going to love you for who you are.”

Whenever an interviewer threw a fastball at Brady, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t get defensive.

The Bills were struck by his dogged positivity.

“He’s just a positive guy,” Beane says. “A fresh new message. Positive energy. Along with his intelligence is what you’re going to get and his vision. And it’s up to me to help him — me and my staff — to help him bring his vision to life.”

Allen has his finger on the pulse of the locker room and Allen also happens to make $55 million per year. He warranted a say, but not the say, in making sure the Bills secured a voice who’d freshen up the building. That’s why Allen was not involved with the final Zoom call. If the call went south — if the choice wasn’t Brady — Beane didn’t want his QB feeling like he was part of the reason why.

All of which is a delicate balance. No team wants its quarterback going Full Aaron Rodgers. After holding the Green Bay Packers hostage for three months in 2021, the former MVP lampooned management at the podium for what he considered a series of transgressions. He rattled off a string of players he believed the team should’ve re-signed when, in truth, a simple Google search reveals the Packers were smart to cut ties in most of those cases.

GMs must GM. Coaches must coach. Players play.

The Bills know Allen’s wiring.

“Anybody that’s criticizing the quarterback’s role in this?” Guelli adds. “It’s the biggest no-brainer you could possibly have. He was engaged. He was professional. He was objective. He was a really, really important part of the entire process but did not in any way try to steer it or dominate it. He was just one of the group. Anything you thought about going into that stuff, you came out feeling even better about this guy leading you.”

If “process” was the word drilled into craniums nine years ago, the new word of the day is “alignment.”

Before, McDermott and Beane reported to Pegula separately.

Before, McDermott and Allen weren’t exactly Reid/Mahomes.

Finally, the Bills believe they’ve got Owner-GM-HC-QB synced up. Nor do they believe McDermott packed up his culture with him upon dismissal. Everyone in charge repeats that the players themselves will drive the culture.

The key is trying to get the best out of No. 17. There’s a new order of operations in Orchard Park.

“He gives this organization the best chance to win the Super Bowl,” Beane says. “And the two most important hires that an organization can make are No. 1, the franchise quarterback. And No. 2, the head coach. It’s paramount to do that. The best way to give him a chance to win Super Bowl is make sure we have the right head coach. And then it’s my job to make sure the rest of the people are aligned with the vision and the players that we need to help those two lead this team and get over the top.”

Beane points out that Allen turns 30 years in May. Not 38. He expects several bites at the championship apple. Still, the Bills made it clear to all candidates that this is no rebuild, no teardown. The expectation is a ring. Brady fully understood the urgency.

“He’s not hiding from saying he wants to win the whole damn thing,” Beane says.

To earn the job, he needed to offer a plan on the field.

Attack

Opinion became cold-hard fact by the eighth playoff defeat: McDermott’s defense malfunctions in January. His unit allowed a staggering 33.2 ppg in its last six postseason L’s. And on those 52 non-kneeldown drives, the Bills surrendered 3.83 points per drive — a higher rate that the 2007 New England Patriots — while creating only three turnovers.

When Brady referenced “intense” dialogue with the Bills, Beane is sure this is what he’s referencing. “You want to be aggressive?” grilled Beane. “What does that mean? Tell me. What are you going to do? What do you know about defense?”

Brady pointed to what can give their own MVP quarterback a hard time. When defenses disguise their intent past the 15-second mark on the play clock, there’s nothing he can do as a playcaller to help Allen. Communication on the headset shuts off. Brady can only curse and hope Allen sees the same thing he does.

This will define his defense. Brady won’t only try to get inside the brains of quarterbacks.

“I want coordinators,” Brady told Beane, “to be up there going, ‘Fuck we’re not in a good fucking play here. We need to get out of it or we’ve got to call a timeout.’ And I want the defenses to be fucking around. I don’t want ‘em all lined up: Six tech, three tech, one tech. If (Greg) Rousseau is here on this play, he’s going to be over there on this play. I don’t want him when they get out of the huddle to always know where these guys are going to be.”

Big changes are clearly coming to this side of the ball.

On Saturday, the Bills hired Jim Leonhard as their defensive coordinator.

Buffalo’s basic, bend-but-don’t-break scheme works against average quarterbacks. But it was fairly easy for the Broncos — like playoff teams past — to notice an ice-cold Darnell Savage or Dane Jackson in a game, and attack. Telegraph your intent vs. smart coordinators (and smart quarterbacks) in the playoffs and you’re cooked. Coaches who’ve faced the Bills have told Go Long there’s nothing exotic about this scheme. That’s a tough way to make a living for teams not named the Houston Texans.

The Bills’ brass also had the same questions as fans: What’s the vision on offense?

Brady took it back to ’20 and ’21 before his arrival, noting how successful the Bills were in 10 and 11 personnel with a horde of weapons at wide receiver: Stefon Diggs, Cole Beasley, John Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, Gabe Davis. Then, he pointed out that as defenses tried to match spread offenses with lighter defenders, 12 and 13 personnel became in vogue across the NFL. Offenses have deployed more two- and three- tight end sets to smash finesse personnel. Both teams about to play in the NFC title game, he told them, go heavy. The Bills were able to stay ahead of this trend by developing a ground game of their own. James Cook led the NFL in rushing. Teams cannot sit back in two shell against Buffalo.

Brady told the Bills he’ll keep evolving. More spread concepts out of 11 and 10 personnel are absolutely a possibility with another weapon or two. Especially considering more defenses are masquerading one-high as two high safeties before the snap. There will be opportunities downfield.

Seasons past, Brady wasn’t necessarily instructed all game what to do, but the head coach had his hands all over the crafting of individual gameplans. McDermott’s week-to-week focus was straightforward: “How do we win the game?” Against elite quarterbacks, he’d stress the need to possess the ball and play keepaway. Brady was a good soldier who respected his boss. He surely remembered how he got the OC job midway through 2023. McDermott fired Ken Dorsey because he believed Dorsey’s balance was out of whack.

Establishing the line of scrimmage is important. Throwing the ball 50+ a game is counterproductive for any team. During his interview, Brady also did not demean or criticize McDermott. But it was clear he would’ve called a few games differently if he was in charge.

“He talked about more downfield passing and that’s on me,” Beane says. “I’ve got to make sure I got the right pieces to do that, too.”

No longer will the Bills be reactive.

One rallying cry at the introductory press conference was probably no coincidence.

“I believe in everything about these guys right here,” Brady said. “And the mentality as we go forward is that it is a nameless, faceless opponent that we’re going against. They’ve got to play us and not the other way around. I mean that with everything. They’ve got to play Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, not the other way around. And it does not matter the day of the week, the time of the day. Is it outside? Is it inside? What’s the weather? Just put the damn ball down. Let’s go play.”

The reason Brady was in such demand is that his offense has been so productive. Look at any advanced statistic. In ’24, the Bills ranked second in EPA per play and seventh in success rate. In ’25, they were third and second. Not that everything was perfect. Beane put him on the spot. In a 23-19 loss to Houston, Allen was hit 12 times and sacked eight times. The GM asked Brady how he’d approach this game if he could do it again and Brady did not hesitate — he pointed all fingers at himself. He told the GM he lost sleep over that loss because he was too slow adjusting to Houston’s venomous pass rush and didn’t fully account for Spencer Brown’s injured arm.

He even brought up another game he called poorly.

At his introductory press conference, a time for all first-year coaches to bask in sunlight, Brady brought up Buffalo’s five turnovers in their 33-30 divisional playoff loss to Denver. He took full blame.

A refreshing change from playoff defeats past.

Accountability

Players. Coaches. Everyone inside this building — we’re told repeatedly — is dying for accountability.

Joe Brady has a strong relationship with his quarterback.

Joe Brady brings an infectious energy the Bills have been lacking.

This may be the greatest change of all.

“When our guys play well, it’s because of them,” Brady said. “When they don’t, it’s because of me. We address things obviously in the meeting rooms but the accountability is going to always start and end with me. I take full responsibility for having the ball with the game on the line and we didn’t get it done.”

Contrast this with the aftermath of “13 Seconds,” when coaches recalled McDermott absurdly stating that the offense scored too fast in the locker room. The next day, he then told his assistants: “You guys need to get away. Recharge, reflect, and figure out what you can do better to avoid that happening again.” With that, McDermott exited the room. In reality, the head coach was to blame. (“He never takes accountability,” one former Bills assistant recalled. “For anything.”)

After last season’s conference title loss, McDermott directed everyone’s attention to the offense’s failure on the final drive.

“Accountability is not what we just had,” says one Bills source who’s seen how McDermott reacts privately to the team’s crushing playoff losses. “Players are only going to go so far if they don’t feel you’re accountable. It’s got to be both ways.”

This is why we’ve cited 13 Seconds as the moment that broke McDermott’s Bills. Overruling a squib kick. Lining up his cornerbacks in another zip code. Getting steamrolled in overtime. Everything you saw on the field was bad enough. Everything said behind closed doors was somehow worse. There was no ownership, so there was no way to move on.

Another team source estimates the Bills were operating at “60 percent” capacity due to the coach’s lack of accountability.

A psychological reset was long overdue.

Now, the Bills give themselves a chance to win a Super Bowl.

Neither Beane or Guelli want to look back to the past. Understandable. Beane also declines to say who qualified as finalists for this job. When asked about Udinski, a fan favorite, Beane said the Jags OC has a “high, high intelligence factor” and will be a head coach “for sure” one day. “Brilliant,” Guelli chimed in.

Buffalo spoke to Brady first, then last. After interviewing with the Las Vegas Raiders, the OC returned to Buffalo at 11:30 p.m. on Monday Jan. 26. Beane told him to be ready for a call any time after 8 a.m. They were all still in Florida, while Brady was still in his office. His stuff was packed. He didn’t know if he’d be heading back to Las Vegas, to Baltimore as OC or just down the hall to McDermott’s office. By 8:45 a.m., they all hopped on that final Zoom call and Beane knew about 30 minutes in that this was his guy.

Others did not hold back. That’s when Guelli ‘n company hammered Brady with their toughest questions.

“Conviction. Clarity. He was a confident guy,” Beane says. “Listen, he’s a wanted man. I know for damn sure if Vegas didn’t hire him, there were multiple teams that would’ve made him the highest-paid OC. And so you’ve got to make sure before you let the guy out of the building. Him being here should not have hurt him, but it shouldn’t have helped him either. That’s the clearest, cleanest process.”

Beane turned to Pegula and said, “I’m good.”

The others continued to ask questions. And when it was Pegula’s turn, the owner cut to the chase: “Well, sounds like you should be the next head coach of Buffalo Bills.”

Brady kept rolling with the interview, before stopping himself. “Is that a job offer?” he asked. With that, the Bills completed their search. Once Brady accepted the position, Beane filled in Allen and contract details were ironed out with agent Trace Armstrong over an hour and 15 minutes.

Approval ratings, be damned.

This was easily one of the most tumultuous weeks of the GM’s football life. After McDermott’s firing, fans vilified Brandon Beane as the nefarious victor of a Game of Thrones-like power play behind the scenes. At his subsequent presser, Beane became emotional. He called such accusations harmful “BS” and said his wife had tears in her eyes when he walked through the door.

The same people photoshopping “Big Baller Beane” memes on social media were now out for blood. Whereas McDermott was painted as a combination of Vince Lombardi and Mother Theresa, he was the backstabber. Right when he needed to shift gears and find the team’s next head coach.

Deafening uproar can send anyone down a dark road.

Or, you grow. You use the experience for good.

A few words from one friend stuck: “You know who you are, no one else defines you.” Beane also received texts from people throughout the building who were excited about the team’s future. Not just people trying to save their jobs, either. Staffers in completely different departments reached out.

“I walk in this building,” he continues, “people are fired up. And that’s what fires me up. I feel responsibility for the trainers, the scouts, sports science, the video, they’re all behind this, our vision going forward. I know if I lose my job that it’s not about me. They could lose their job. And so I’m going to fucking do everything.

“And that goes with selecting the right head coach.”

With that, Beane hustles out. He’s got to reconvene with Brady to hire a staff.

In March, there’s players to sign. In April, there’s prospects to draft. In September, everyone will move into that glistening new stadium across Abbott Road. And for this team, with this quarterback, it’s all still all about one month. January.

The good news? Nobody seems to understand that more than the man the Buffalo Bills hired.