ORCHARD PARK - Joe Brady is smart enough to know that while he is now the full-time offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills, that doesn’t mean he has to rip up the old playbook and start anew.

“Look, at the end of the day this is Josh Allen’s offense, right?” Brady said Tuesday in his first meeting with reporters since the Bills saw another season blown up by the Chiefs in the 2023 playoffs.

“You’re gonna put together the offense around the guys that you’ve got. So for us to just say, ‘Hey, we’re going to scrap everything because everything was broken.’ That wasn’t the case. There’ll be some elements of things that I believe in, but it’s more of like, tell me who we have on our football team and what they can do well and we’re going to do that.”

When Brian Daboll arrived in 2018, shortly before the Bills picked Allen No. 7 overall in that draft, he built his offense around the rookie, knowing it wouldn’t be long before Allen was supplanting Nathan Peterman. That ultimately happened in the very first game.

Daboll spent four seasons crafting the attack and he got it to a point where the Bills were one of the most explosive teams in the NFL in 2020 and 2021. When Daboll moved on to the Giants, his QB coach, Ken Dorsey, was promoted from within to continue the growth and the Bills were again dynamic in 2022.

And then there were some struggles in 2023, so Sean McDermott fired Dorsey in mid-November and promoted Brady, then made Brady the full-time OC after the season.

Obviously there have been changes, particularly at wide receiver as Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis are gone, and Khalil Shakir is the only player in that position group who has ever caught a pass from Allen in a game. Still, Brady isn’t about to reinvent the wheel here because Allen is the one constant, and that’s a pretty important constant to have, so he’s taking the existing playbook and making only minor tweaks.

“There’s certain things that Josh Allen has been doing for years here and the last thing I want is for him to have to think out there in making some calls,” Brady said. “So if there are things that I feel like, from a learning standpoint, would be easier for the guys to maybe learn, we look at that, but other than that, if it’s something that was gonna slow 17 down, not changing.”

What he is basically saying is that he’s checking his ego at the door and Allen will have a huge say in how the offense is structured, and how it operates, because Brady recognizes that would be best for the team. There’s no need to change the engine in a Ferrari if it’s still humming along.

Here are some of the other topics Brady addressed:

He is appreciative of this second chance

Brady was a boy wonder when he became the Panthers OC in 2020, just after coordinating one of the greatest offenses in college football history during LSU’s run to the 2019 national championship with Joe Burrow at quarterback. However, it never worked in Carolina and he was fired two-thirds of the way through the 2021 season, then hooked on with the Bills as QB coach in 2022.

“I wasn’t satisfied the way it ended last time,” Brady said. “I have a passion for calling plays strictly from a play standpoint, but I also have a passion for teaching and coaching, and being around the guys and seeing them party in the end zone. And so, I love that relationships element of it.

“I didn’t do a good enough job in my last stop. So this is a great opportunity for me to dive into the players, not just the player element but the person. I have so much pride in this organization. Like, you live in Buffalo, you know how much the Bills mean to it and being the offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills, there’s a lot of expectations. I’m appreciative of the opportunity and I want nothing more than to deliver for this city, for this organization.”

Who will replace all those Stefon Diggs targets?

Brady has quite a challenge in that almost the entire wide receiver room is new this season.

Since the start of 2020 when Diggs was acquired in a trade and Davis was drafted, they were responsible for 608 catches for 8,102 yards and 64 TDs. That’s a massive amount of production to replace.

“You don’t just sit there and say you’re gonna replace a player or replace a scheme or targets,” Brady said. “Every year is gonna be different and to me the biggest thing is just as you’re going into is, ‘Alright, hey, what do these wide receivers do well, and let’s find ways to put them in those positions.’”

Shakir is joined by free agent signees Curtis Samuel, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Chase Claypool and Mack Hollins and second-round draft pick Keon Coleman, among others. And of course, tight end Dalton Kincaid who is basically a receiver in a slightly bigger body.

“Right now we have a lot of newness in that receiver room and there’s so much good and so much excitement with it, and it’s trying to get a comfort level on the field for some of those guys,” Brady said. “It’s Josh Allen’s offense, but it’s also about what your players do well, and so this is the time right now that we’re experimenting with some things like, ‘Hey, can this guy do this? Can this guy not do this?’ And we’ll continue to evolve and come September we’re hoping that we’ll have a good feel.”

James Cook’s usage to be determined

Last year, his second in the NFL, Cook had 281 touches rushing and receiving which was more than he had in his entire college career at Georgia. Clearly, he handled it well because he finished sixth in the NFL in yards gained from scrimmage with 1,567. However, can he continue to carry that type of workload?

“I think a lot of that is kind of we’ll see,” Brady said. “We feel confident in the room that we have that whoever is playing running back and carrying the football, they’re going to do a good job. With regards to setting a certain target number (of touches), I think a lot of that is kind of seeing how his body holds up throughout the season and what he can do.”

The Bills resigned Ty Johnson in free agency, drafted Ray Davis in the fourth round, and signed undrafted free agent Frank Gore Jr. If any of those players emerges, Cook could see fewer touches, and that might actually be beneficial for him. Also, Brady said Cook appears to have made gains in the weight room.

“He’s physically in better shape than he was,” Brady said. “You look at him and I can tell he put in a lot of work this offseason. Like, he looks different in a good way so I‘m excited to see the type of run style he plays with this season.”

New QBs coach Ronald Curry has influenced Brady

Curry was hired in the offseason to replace Brady as the QBs coach. Curry was the wide receiver coach for the Saints when Brady was there as an offensive assistant in 2018 and he later was the Saints’ QB coach and passing game coordinator.

“He’s been incredible,” Brady said. “I shared an office with him in New Orleans and he was huge for my growth. A guy that played wide receiver in the NFL, played quarterback growing up. So he’s played at the highest level and also sees it from a quarterback perspective, but also can teach it from a receiver perspective.

“That’s huge because when we try to teach wide receivers here, we want them to understand where they are in the progression, understand why you got to get in that depth. So from a quarterback coach to be like, ‘Hey, look, I’ve taught the receivers this, this is how they’re thinking it’ is huge for a quarterback.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out every other Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Joe Brady giving Josh Allen huge say in Buffalo Bills offense in 2024