By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Columnist
The biggest question about the Bills heading into the 2026 season is whether this year’s roster stands up against the talented one former head coach Sean McDermott fielded a couple of seasons ago, falling just short of the 2021 Super Bowl via a 42-36 overtime loss to the Chiefs in Kansas City … the famed “13 seconds” game.
McDermott has been run off, replaced by his offensive coordinator, Joe Brady, and this season’s 53-man roster is down a third from last year as there are 18 new players including five rookies, four of them draftees.
Ten of the 17 practice-squad players are new including three draftees.
But the biggest change is Brady himself, one of 10 new head coaches in the 32-team NFL.
“IT’S HARD to remember exactly what our roster was at each position,” general manager Brandon Beane said Tuesday of the 2025 squad during his press conference at One Bills Drive. “I think, like anything, there’s some spots you feel really good at, and there’s some that we’re still developing … some guys on the practice squad.
“It’s important that we keep developing some of these young players because we know … we’ve seen it. It’s a 17-game season and you hope that you have the opportunity to play in the playoffs. And if you do, you look at every team, guys that started the season either not on the roster or on the practice squad and are playing meaningful minutes.”
OF COURSE, there are those who maintain that team owner Terry Pegula “fired the wrong guy” when he dispatched McDermott and kept Beane.
And, of course, there was the interesting personal dynamic where it was McDermott who hired Beane, his friend and assistant general manager with the Carolina Panthers, to be Buffalo’s GM. Then, in the irony of ironies, after nine mostly-successful seasons — eight of them ending in the playoffs — it was his pal, Beane, who dumped him and remained GM.
THAT LEFT the head-coaching job to Brady who will take over the offensive play-calling chores in contrast to McDermott, a defensive specialist. who assumed that role last season.
In looking ahead to the season, Brady pointed out, “Nobody has higher expectations than I do.”
Brady continued, “I want camp to be hard … not fun … but a chance to build camaraderie. Camp is an amp-up period for everybody. We have an unusual situation where we’re going back to a new stadium with all its nuances.
“I like going away to campus, it’s a chance for us to get our focus.”
He added, that it affects him too.
“I can’t not be myself. I’m not going to be something I’m not … or act a certain way. I’m comfortable with who I am.”
But is it enough to craft an elite a playoff team?
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
