Our two-part profile on the new man in charge of the Buffalo Bills here, icymi:
Subscribers can read Go Long’s latest conversation with Brady this week below.
ORCHARD PARK, NY — Joe Brady is engineering a psychological shift off Abbott Road. It’s overdue. It’s authentic to who he is as a person. The new man in charge of the Buffalo Bills does not want his players to lose the plot.
This was more than an internal promotion because the way Brady attacks day-to-day life as an NFL head coach is a sharp contrast to his former boss. I remember sitting in Sean McDermott’s office in January 2025 — the man was prepared. At one point, he grabbed a Postseason Plan off his desk. The thick packet of papers stapled in the left corner consisted of a long list of neatly curated sections: “mindset,” “the game,” “distractions,” “first-round bye,” “Super Bowl.”
He hyper-analyzed every conceivable situation players could face on gameday.
Planning for the likes of Patrick Mahomes followed similar protocol. Those around the coach who turned this moribund franchise around could sense a tightness build as kickoff neared.
And here’s Brady.
He wants his staff immersed in the details of every opponent — no doubt — but he isn’t going to drown his players in an information overload. Specifically, Brady does not want his players obsessing over individual players on the other sideline. It’s why he didn’t name one New York Jets defender in his first meeting with the offense as OC in ’23 and continued the trend. Hell, the only player he’s ever spoke about in front of the unit was Myles Garrett. (More on that later.)
Why put Mahomes, why put anyone up on a pedestal? Doing so may allow a droplet of fear to work its way into the subconscious. And it’s not the Bills who should be afraid.
When I sat down with Brady at length for our two-parter in the spring, this was the No. 1 takeaway.
“In front of the mass,” Brady said, “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.”
They need to deal with Josh Allen.
They need to deal with the miserable Western New York cold in December.
They need to deal with a new defense that’ll ramp up unpredictability… and attack. Jim Leonhard’s scheme will take chances.
All of which makes the team’s Week 1 opponent so poetic. The Bills fly south to what’s been their personal house of horrors. The ultimate litmus test for the Joe Brady Era arrives at the starter’s gun. Schematically, thinking this way backfired in last season’s 23-19 defeat. Allen was sacked eight times, hit 12 times, battered silly.
Mainly because this rabid Texans defense attacks Sundays the same way. They declare: “We want you to remember when you played the Texans.”
Go Long threw itself back into this Texans World for our final season-preview feature.
Sources explained how this defense just might’ve cracked the code on the greatest player of our generation: Patrick Mahomes. Truth is, they’ve had the same success vs. Allen, too.
The Texans crater the pocket without blitzing and then it’s a matter of not letting Allen (like Mahomes) knife up the pocket. The Texans want to flush Allen wide —which is where he likes to go anyway — where their team speed/violence reigns supreme. Allen possesses a cannon. He can make any throw on the run. But the Texans are also confident in their DBs sticking with Buffalo’s receivers.
How Buffalo approaches this offensive gameplan will be fascinating.
In last year’s matchup, Brady did not keep extra blockers in to protect.
The Bills did a bunch of funky pre-snap motions to identify what the Texans were in and Allen was clearly confident he had this defense exactly where he wanted ‘em. The QB wanted all five weapons out on routes. Thing is, the Texans will gladly take their five rushers up front vs. any team’s five linemen 1 on 1. Oh, you’d like to isolate offensive tackles on Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter? Fine by them.
Compounding the issue, Buffalo didn’t have receivers, tight ends or backs who could shake free 1 on 1 on those routes.
The last two years, the Bills have had a horde of pass catchers who are at their best inside, which allowed the Texans to pack the middle. To win on Sunday — and in January — they’ll need a separator capable of winning outside. Can DJ Moore be that weapon? A healthy Joshua Palmer? Keon Coleman 3.0? The Texans will take their chances sticking Derek Stingley or Kamari Lassiter over an X and mucking up the action inside. It takes a burner who can pull away from a cornerback to have success against this defense.
The Texans have questions of their own. C.J. Stroud has only regressed since his sensational rookie season. Nobody in football faces more pressure than him.
On Sunday, we’ll start to get answers.
A prediction? Brady, Allen, Leonhard and these 2026 Bills slam the damn accelerator for better or worse this week and beyond.
More passing, more downfield concepts on offense.
More pressure, more risk-taking on defense. As Leonhard said this week: “We have to throw our punches.”
This will lead to mistakes. But in the long run — in the interest of championships — it’s the correct way to play. I loved Josh Allen’s answer in our 1 on 1 on his fumble at Denver in the playoffs. Hell no, that gaffe won’t dull his play style. “I’m going to play football how I know how to play it until I can’t,” he told us. The Bills’ defensive approach must mirror this mentality. Trying to keep all the action in front of you works wonders against the New York Jets or Miami Dolphins in Week 12.
Brady’s mission is to mold a Bills team capable of winning games vs. the best quarterbacks in the playoffs.
From the day he was hired, the 36-year-old has not shied from Super Bowl expectations. Neither has GM Brandon Beane. Amid frantic public outcry over the hire, the team’s new president of football operations told us: “If I’m wrong, the moving company will be at my house. 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.”
Well, the 2026 NFL Season is finally here.
Go Long caught up 1 on 1 with Brady again after one practice this week to revisit his “they’ve got to play us” crede and how this mindset will apply to Sunday’s heavyweight fight.
Brady knows his voice sets the tone.
Players take on the reflection of their coach. We also talk big picture.
Brady has come a long way from sprinting onto a high school football field for his one shot as a player before then suffering a staph infection and hearing a doctor say he might lose his leg.
Paid subscribers can read our latest conversation below.
When we sat down back in April, I love the way you put it: “They’ve got to play us.” That mentality, that mindset. Now that it’s been five months, how have you incorporated those words into your football team as the coach? In little ways and big ways?
Brady: I’ve just tried to be myself through it all. And I hope that’s the mentality that I approach everything with. Look, at the end of the day, I believe in the guys we have and I want them to know there’s going to be bad out there, we’re going to make mistakes, but we don’t need to concern ourselves with all the outside noise, with who we’re playing or who’s on that team or what’s happening. Let’s just focus on ourselves — and then we walk off the bus — we should feel confident in our preparation and who we have that we should be good to go. And I can say that because I do have that faith in the guys. It’s not a false confidence. We have what I believe we need. So there’s no reason we should walk into each stadium not feeling that.
Subconsciously, that’s got to bake its way into players’ competitive brains, right? Yes, you have to worry about Will Anderson Jr. and Derek Stingley Jr. — and you do. You’re doing that behind the scenes. But if you’re bringing their names up 100 times this week, I’m guessing that could be detrimental.
Brady: Yeah. It’s not for everybody. And look, maybe I’ll figure it out as we go, but I took a lot of pride in — once I became OC — that I never… the only person I ever talked about, I talked about Myles Garrett once in my entire time in front of the unit. The only thing I said was, “Look, he’s going to break the sack record at some point this year, but it’s not going to be against us.” That was the only time. And I even walked out and I was like, “That’s the first time I’ve ever even brought up an opponent, a person.” Hey, let’s just focus on ourselves. This is what we’re going to have to do. This is what we have to do. I think it’s good for the guys. Hey, this is what we’ve got to control and it shouldn’t be, “Hey, this week we have to do something differently. This week — because they have Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter — we’ve got to change this.” And so the guys know it. We go into meetings and we prepare. The coaches talk in-depth and all that, but they don’t need to then go hear it from me and then go hear it again. So, we’ll see.
There’s got to be a happy medium. You’re not going to lay out your gameplan for this Sunday here obviously. But with Myles Garrett (last season), it did seem like there was a lot of attention sent his way and you wanted to take him out of that game. In Houston, it was: “Shit, we’re going to run our stuff.” I don’t know what that balance is. Do you go back and forth on the best approach?
Brady: Obviously, look, any time Josh is on his back, that’s not a good thing. I never liked that. I didn’t like how I called the game. I didn’t like how we played. There’s so many things that we grew from, after that game, the rest of the year. I’ve refused — and I’ve told the guys this — the fact that it was a Thursday night game has nothing to do with anything. That has nothing to do with it. That’s our job as coaches to put a better product out there. That’s our job as players to be put in better positions, all that. This defense is outstanding. And they have a great combination and it’s a product of their coach. You can tell their team plays to the personality of DeMeco. So, I have a lot of respect for it and that’s not just talk. It’s fun to see as a fan of football. They fly around the football. They hunt the ball. And they’ve got guys who fit their scheme and believe in what they’re doing. It’s hard to have a plan for the D-Linemen and then have a plan for the corners and then have a plan… that’s why they’re so successful and so it’s going to be a great opportunity.
What do you want the personality of your team to be? When “they” have to play “us,” what do you want the Buffalo Bills to really be this first season?
Brady: I want us to be able to find ways to win different ways. If we only have one fastball and this is all we’ve got — and a team eventually finds ways to navigate that and we don’t have other ways to win football games — we’re going to struggle. It’s not, “Hey, the only way we win is if we run the ball” or “the only way we win is if we stop the run.” Those are so easy that every team in the league is saying you’ve got to run the ball and stop the run. But all right, if we’re not running the ball, do we have a system in place and answers to be able to still find a way to win the football game? OK, hey, we’re not stopping the run. Do we have ways of being a little more versatile in defensive packages and change things up? I want our guys to have the mindset of: “Hey, we’re going to figure it out and we’ve got 60 minutes to figure it out and just play the next play. Put the ball down and we’ll be good to go.”
You and Brandon both have not been backing down from these expectations. We’ve been talking about it since January. You’re stepping into an unprecedented…
Brady: But I don’t know that. You know what I mean? I don’t know that. I’m not running from anything. I never have. But I don’t spend time thinking about, “Oh my God, this is my first…” I got asked the question the other day: “What’s it like going to be like coaching your first game?” Right, wrong or indifferent. We can go out there and fucking lose by 80. So I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to grow. I’m going to roll with it, but I’m going to walk in with the same level of confidence that I have my entire life because we’re preparing for it and I’ve got guys in that locker room that I’ve got a lot of confidence in.
You were that sixth-string receiver running onto the field in high school.
Brady: Yeah, that’s it. That’s why I don’t blink when we’ve had to play a lot of wideouts the last couple of years because it’s like, “Look, those guys are going to be ready to go. Let’s go.” I can’t sit there and be like, “Oh, you know what? We’re having to play this guy this week or this guy.” Nope, that was me. So, I don’t blink. We’ll have 11 in the huddle and we’ll be alright.
Just no staph infection again.
Brady: No staph infections. I don’t have to play anymore, so as long as I can be on the sideline, I’ll be on the sideline.
I believe they call what Joe Brady is trying to eradicate “Paralysis by Analysis”. I preach not overthinking the game so much to my players.
Great insight, the coach and team appear simultaneously relaxed and proactive. Will be great to see how it plays out the first few weeks! Many thanks, Tyler, for your time!