INDIANAPOLIS, IN (WIVB) – While their paths never crossed until now, Sean
McDermott and Joe Brady have made similar stops during their football playing
and coaching careers with the latest being in Buffalo.

The Bills hired Brady as their quarterbacks coach to replace Ken Dorsey who
was promoted to offensive coordinator when Brian Daboll left for the Giants
head coaching job. Most recently Brady was offensive coordinator for the
Panthers during the 2020 season and most of 2021 before he was fired in early
December.

The other similarity between McDermott and Brady is they both played at
William & Mary in college. Brady was a wide receiver from 2009 to 2012
while McDermott was a safety at William & Mary and was named a team captain
his senior season in 1997. And that connection is something McDermott doesn’t
forget to remind people about when talking about Brady.

“First of all he’s a William and Mary grad,” McDermott laughed at
the NFL Combine on Tuesday.

While the two never overlapped at William & Mary or in Carolina,
McDermott knew about Brady’s reputation around the league.

“You have a chance in this profession to watch people from afar
somewhat and watch the work they do and of course you watch what he did at LSU
and I knew his name coming through the ranks that he did at William & Mary
and what he did after in his post grad years in terms of his coaching career,
his early coaching career and who he spent time with,” McDermott
explained.

“This is not an offense that Joe has run before but Joe’s a bright
mind, heard very good things about him. Obviously great history in college and
with Carolina his first year they did some really good things. I don’t know
what happened specifically. We didn’t get into a lot of that in the
process,” Bills GM Brandon Beane said at the NFL Combine.

Before his time with the Panthers, Brady was LSU’s passing game coordinator
and wide receivers coach when the Tigers finished with a perfect season, won
the National Championship and quarterback Joe Burrow Heisman Trophy.

“You’re talking about by all accounts a smart guy that works hard and
so when you combine those two things which is a big part of some of the
decisions that went into those other hires as well.”

“Being around him for the last few weeks, he’s very humble, for someone
who’s had his success, very humble, wants to come learn new ways and then I
know Ken Dorsey’s gonna ask Joe ‘hey how do you see things?’, ‘what’s a way you
guys called this or a way to beat this coverage’ or anything that’s going
on,” Beane explained.

And that ability for Dorsey to bounce ideas off Brady is huge considering
Dorsey has never called plays before and Brady has.

“I think that’s an important quality right, in the staff that we we put
together around Ken. I’ve been in that position before and there’s no
substitute for experience like in many of the jobs that we are in. Ken is
prepared, he’s well equipped, he’s seen it through the players’ eyes as I say,
seen it through the eyes of the helmet, he’s now seen it for a number of years
through the coaching lens and so I think he’s gonna do a great job,”
McDermott said.

“In addition to that, his familiarity with Josh, Josh’s familiarity
with Ken but there is the element of ‘hey what happens in the office and hey
I’ve got a guy next to me that has experience that’s called plays.’ So I think
that’s a big component as well.”