Joe Brady embraces high expectations as he succeeds Sean McDermott as Bills coach

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Joe Brady did not dismiss the past while looking ahead to leading the Buffalo Bills into the future as their head coach.

Before outlining his vision to bring the same attacking element to defense as he introduced to Buffalo’s Josh Allen-led offense as its coordinator for the past two-plus seasons, Brady first paid tribute to his immediate predecessor during his opening news conference on Thursday.

Brady acknowledged he’d otherwise be starting from scratch without Sean McDermott laying the foundation of sustained success and a winning culture over a nine-season tenure that ended with his firing last week.

The challenge now for Brady is taking a franchise that’s accomplished everything but reach the Super Bowl one step further.

“I understand that I’m walking into this role in a much better position than Coach McDermott did. I’m not naive to that,” Brady said.

“I also understand that the expectations are higher as well. I didn’t take this job to shy away from expectations. I sure as hell did not do that,” he added. “I’m embracing it. I’m understanding it. And I’m meeting it full on.”

The 36-year-old Brady has big shoes to fill after McDermott went 98-50 in the regular season and 8-8 in the playoffs — ranking second on the team in wins behind only Hall of Famer Marv Levy — and transforming the Bills from long-time losers to perennial winners.

And Brady has a challenge in addressing the team's postseason shortcomings.

Owner Terry Pegula believed the Bills had reached “the proverbial playoff wall” in deciding to fire McDermott two days after a 33-30 overtime loss at Denver in the divisional playoff round. It marked Buffalo’s third consecutive playoff loss to be decided by three points. And the Bills became the NFL’s first team to win a playoff round in six straight years but not reach the Super Bowl.

Brady was hired on Tuesday following a six-day search process in which the Bills held nine interviews before deciding to hire their only in-house candidate.

Though he has no previous head coaching experience, Brady brings an element of continuity and familiarity to a team on a seven-year playoff run, and led by an elite quarterback in Allen.

“We all know Joe. Joe is a brilliant offensive mind,” general manager Brandon Beane said of an offense that produced the AP NFL MVP in Allen a year ago, and featured the NFL’s rushing leader in James Cook this season.

“Joe’s offenses know how to attack in many different ways,” Beane added. “But what I and our team learned through this process was Joe’s vision for how he would run an entire football team.”

Brady is from Florida, played collegiately at William & Mary, and broke into the NFL coaching ranks as an offensive assistant on Sean Payton’s staff in New Orleans from 2017 and ’18. Brady then left to become passing game coordinator on an LSU team — featuring Joe Burrow at quarterback — that won the 2019 national championship.

Brady returned to the NFL as the Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator before being fired before completing his second season in 2022, and hired as the Bills quarterbacks coach a year later.

Brady credited Payton, now coaching in Denver, for providing him “a doctorate degree on offense.” And it’s an approach he wants to carry over to the entire team.

“The mentality as we go forward that it is a nameless, faceless opponent that we’re going against, and they’ve got to play us and not the other way around. And I mean that with everything,” Brady said.

“It does not matter the day of the week. The time of the day. Is it outside? Is it inside? It doesn’t matter. Just put the damn ball down and let’s go play.”

Brady took the podium with Allen seated in the front row, and with the silhouette of the Bills new $2.1 billion stadium evident through the shaded windows of team’s training facility.

“Culture starts with them,” Brady said, pointing to Allen and several teammates in the crowd. “The men in the locker room set the culture, regardless of who the head coach is. And it’s my job to make sure I’m allowing them to be their personality, allowing them to play to their personality.”

Allen, walking with crutches after having surgery for a broken bone in his right foot, played a role in the search process by sitting in on candidate interviews.

The quarterback lamented playing a role in McDermott's firing.

“If I make one more play that game in Denver, we’re probably not having this press conference right now. We’re probably not making a change and in all honesty,” he said, before backing Brady. “I'm very looking forward to Joe and guys getting behind him and rallying behind him and understanding his vision because I do believe in it.”

Brady's immediate priority is building out his staff with openings at defensive, offensive and special teams coordinator and various other positions.

Brady’s hiring still raised questions over the team’s vision. Though he brings continuity and has a tight relationship with Allen, Brady’s also spent four seasons as part of a coaching staff that fell short of Super Bowl aspirations.

Though Buffalo’s offense scored 24 or more points in each of its past three playoff losses, the unit has struggled in the clutch.

Buffalo’s final drives in each of those losses ended with an interception in overtime against Denver earlier this postseason; turning the ball over on downs at midfield in a 32-29 loss to Kansas City last season; and a missed field goal in a 27-24 loss to Kansas City in 2023.

“I'm just as responsible, right?” Brady said, noting the five turnovers the Bills committed against Denver were on him, not the players. “Josh Allen is the best player in the NFL, and I have to grow."

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Joe Brady, right, poses for a photo after being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills by general manager Brandon Beane, left, in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)

Joe Brady, right, poses for a photo after being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills by general manager Brandon Beane, left, and Owner Terry Pegula, center, in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, center, arrives at a press conference to announce Joe Brady as the new head coach in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)

Joe Brady meets with reporters after being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills by general manager Brandon Beane, left, in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)

Joe Brady meets with reporters after being introduced as the new head coach of the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and the White House are narrowing in on a spending deal that could avert a partial government shutdown as they negotiate new restrictions for President Donald Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.

As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, the two sides had tentatively agreed to separate homeland security funding from the rest of the legislation and fund it for two weeks while they debate Democratic demands for curbs on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The potential deal comes after Democrats voted to block legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday.

“We don’t want a shutdown,” President Donald Trump said as he began a Cabinet meeting Thursday morning.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had been “vehemently opposed” to breaking up the funding package, but “if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”

Democrats have requested a short extension—two weeks or less—and say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill if their demands aren’t met, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and potentially triggering a shutdown.

Republicans were pushing for a longer extension of the Homeland Security funding, but the two sides were “getting closer,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

The rare bipartisan talks between Trump and his frequent adversary, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, came after the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minnesota over the weekend and calls by senators in both parties for a full investigation. Schumer called it “a moment of truth.”

“The American people support law enforcement. They support border security. They do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens,” Schumer said.

With no final agreement yet and an uncertain path ahead, the standoff threatened to plunge the country into another shutdown, just two months after Democrats blocked a spending bill over expiring federal health care subsidies. That dispute closed the government for 43 days as Republicans refused to negotiate.

The fall shutdown ended when a small group of moderate Democrats broke away to strike a deal with Republicans, but Democrats are more unified this time after the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents.

Democrats have laid out several demands, asking the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

The Democratic caucus is united in those “common sense reforms,” and the burden is on Republicans to accept them, Schumer said.

“Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does,” said Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota. “There has to be accountability.”

Earlier on Thursday, Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, stated during a press conference in Minneapolis that federal immigration officials are developing a plan to reduce the number of agents in Minnesota, but this would depend on cooperation from state authorities.

As the two sides narrowed in on a spending deal, the length of a temporary extension for Homeland Security funding emerged as a sticking point. Thune said Thursday that two weeks wasn’t enough time to negotiate a final compromise.

“We’ll see where discussions are going between (Democrats) and the White House on that,” Thune said.

Even if the two sides strike a deal, negotiations down the road on a final agreement on the Homeland Security bill are likely to be difficult.

Democrats want Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown to end. “If the Trump administration resists reforms, we shut down the agency,” said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

“We need to take a stand,” he said.

But Republicans are unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats' demands.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he is opposed to requiring immigration enforcement officers to show their faces, even as he blamed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for decisions that he said are “tarnishing” the agency’s reputation.

“You know, there’s a lot of vicious people out there, and they’ll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know, your children or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home,” Tillis said.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said some of the Democratic proposals “make sense,” such as better training and body cameras. Still, he said he was putting his Senate colleagues “on notice” that if Democrats try to make changes to the funding bill, he would insist on new language preventing local governments from resisting the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“I think the best legislative solution for our country would be to adopt some of these reforms to ICE and Border Patrol,” Graham posted on X, but also end so-called “sanctuary city” policies.

Across the Capitol, House Republicans have said they do not want any changes to the bill they passed last week. In a letter to Trump on Tuesday, the conservative House Freedom Caucus wrote that its members stand with the Republican president and ICE.

“The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security,” they wrote.

Speaker Johnson appeared open to the changes, albeit reluctantly, and told the AP he would want to approve the bills “as quickly as possible” once the Senate acts.

“The American people will be hanging in the balance over this,” Johnson said. “A shutdown doesn’t help anybody.”

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti, and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks with reporters following a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans on spending legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security and a swath of other government agencies, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

With a partial government shutdown looming by week's end, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is surrounded by reporters following a closed-door Republican meeting on spending legislation that funds the Department of Homeland Security and a swath of other government agencies as the country reels from the deaths of two people at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Donald Trump speaks during the launch of a program known as Trump Accounts at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., waits to speak to reporters following a closed-door meeting with fellow Democrats at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)