New York Jets Could Help Themselves, Hurt Rival With This Coaching Hire

The New York Jets don’t have to look far to find an offensive whiz kid who could be ready to take over his own team as head coach.

Oct 20, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady on the field before a game against the Tennessee Titans at Highmark Stadium. / Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

Sometimes an NFL team that can make a hire that helps the team and hurts a rivals.

Such is the case with Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady.

The 35-year-old coach is bound to be one of the hottest names on the coaching carousel this offseason. In fact, Sports Illustrated recently listed him among their 27 top coaching candidates in their annual list leading up to the hiring cycle.

The New York Jets are one of three teams that will be looking for a new head coach, along with the New Orleans Saints and the Chicago Bears. At the moment, New York is the only team that is also looking for a new general manager. That hire will surely influence who the Jets hire as head coach.

But, on paper, Brady is a whiz kid kind of hire that would not only help the Jets but put a dent in what the Bills’ success.

Brady joined the Bills in 2022 as their quarterbacks coach, which gave him the opportunity to mentor their star quarterback, Josh Allen.

In 2023, with the Buffalo offense struggling, head coach Sean McDermott made the intriguing in-season decision to remove Ken Dorsey and slide Brady into the offensive coordinator chair. With Brady, according to Sports Illustrated, the offense came back to life and was able to weather a key defection after last season.

“Since succeeding Ken Dorsey in the middle of the 2023 season, Joe Brady has taken the No. 3 offense in the NFL in terms of EPA per play (0.177) and No. 1 in play-by-play success rate (51.5%) and produced an offense that is … No. 3 in EPA per play (0.181) and No. 7 in success rate (47.6%), despite losing Stefon Diggs this offseason,” SI wrote in the piece.

The Bills remain one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL even with Diggs out of the picture because Brady’s scheme revolves around Allen’s strengths, leverages multiple receivers and mixes in the run game in a way that can frustrate opponents who are selling out to Allen’s talent.

The Jets got a taste of that earlier this season when they played each other at MetLife Stadium, a game the Bills won.

Brady has experience mentoring another NFL star — Joe Burrow. Before he joined Cincinnati, Burrow was the quarterback for the LSU Tigers, where Brady was the passing game coordinator in 2019.

In that one season the Tigers became one of the most explosive offenses in college football, Burrow won the Heisman Trophy and the Tigers on the national championship.

Brady has this sort of resume that will be intriguing this offseason. In fact, Brady received interviews for head-coaching jobs in the previous cycle, which sets him up for a potential job this time around.