Will Brady be able to get the best out of Moore?
Michael Holley and Mike Florio break down DJ Moore reportedly heading to Buffalo and question if first-time head coach Joe Brady can get the most out of the explosive wide receiver and star quarterback Josh Allen.
Video Transcript
So with the bills, and you touched on the thing that was the hottest topic in football for a while there after the divisional round, is it the talent?
Is it the coaching?
Talent, coaching.
And the only vote that matters in that conversation belongs to owner Terry Pegula.
He decided it's the coaching.
Talent's fine.
And it was Pegula who dragged Keon Coleman by the shoulder pads and threw him under the bus.
"Oh, the coaches wanted him, that guy that we drafted who stinks."
He didn't say that, but that was the implication.
The coaches wanted him, not the general manager.
Don't blame Keon Coleman on Brandon Beane.
There's the production last year for the Bills receivers.
When you consider what they have in Josh Allen and the leading receiver had 719 yards- Wow now the question for D.J.
Moore is this: Is he, is he slipping?
Is his game changing, or is it just a result of, for whatever reason He's 28, he turns 29 next month, April 14.
He went from 140 targets in 2024 to 85 last year.
In 17 games with 80% playing time, he got targeted 85 times, down from 140, and the last time he was working with Joe Brady, he was targeted 163 times, nearly twice the number of times he was targeted last year.
So is it, for whatever reason, Caleb Williams wasn't pulling the trigger?
He's not featured, he's not the number one read.
What is it that caused D.J.
Moore's production to drop?
The Bills are betting on it being something about the Bears offense under Ben Johnson and not something about D.J.
Moore.
Yeah, and, and the Bills are betting that, and Joe Brady is betting that.
But back to what you said about, Terry Pegula.
Hey, is it coaching or is it talent?
And, and the owner said it's coaching, you know, 'cause he decided, he decided when he went into that locker room and saw guys crying after losing a playoff game See, I'm just being a jerk here, but he saw people, losing, crying after a playoff loss, and he decided, "Oh, wow, they're sad.
I gotta get rid of the head coach."
So he, he put that squarely on, the, the Buffalo Bills season squarely on the shoulders of Sean McDermott and Keon Coleman.
So both of those are his, his targets.
But doesn't this tell you, Mike, even if, if Sean McDermott had come back, would they have made a trade?
Yes, of course, they would've made a trade for a wide receiver.
It's clear that if you look at the Bills, and I, I know you've made this point before and Sims has, too, if you look at their talent, defensively, we, you know, that's a different story, but defensively they don't have a lot of people who you say, "Oh, I fear that person.
That, that, that person's gonna be able to wreck our game plan."
And offensively, you know what you got.
You got James Cook, and you got Josh Allen.
Reverse order.
You got Josh Allen, you got James Cook.
So none of those receivers that we listed, tight ends, receivers, sorry, not gonna scare anybody.
So, I, I think the question is not only d- is, is, is D.J.
Moore able to revive his game to that level, does Josh Allen respond to it?
Think how many years Josh Allen h- i- it, it has been since Josh Allen said, "I've gotta get this guy I have to get this guy the ball."
It was prime Stefon Diggs.
So that was probably 2021, 2022, where he said, "I gotta get Stefon Diggs the ball because great things will happen."
Will he look at, will he look at D.J.
Moore and say, "Okay, I gotta get this guy the ball.
I gotta get him up to those 100-plus targets he had when Joe Brady was his offensive coordinator, not his head coach right now"?
And if Josh Allen doesn't say that, does Joe Brady say that as a head coach and, and play caller?
This is interesting.
I, I just don't s- I don't see it, but, but maybe Brady feels like he can kinda go in the, go back in time and bring something out of D.J.
Moore that Ben Johnson couldn't.
Think about that.
Ben Johnson couldn't bring it out of him in a past ha- not past happy, but in a friendly offensive system, but Brady thinks he can.
And if anybody's in a position to know how to tie these two strands together, it's gonna be Joe Brady, how to make Josh Allen mesh with D.J.
Moore.
And I suspect Now, I remember there was a time where we heard a lot of talk about the amount of contact that coaches were allowed to have with players during this dead period, and the CBA has lim- Quarterback can hang out with whoever he wants to hang out with.
If Joe Brady's his friend, quarterback wants to get better, if Joe calls him up and says, "Hey, you wanna come watch some NBA?"
And then when they turn on the TV, it's D.J.
Moore film , you know?
Like, I suspect that there's been an effort to work directly with Once you make Josh Allen part of the team- Yeah that hires Joe Brady, you've given Josh Allen a stature that is not gonna be ignored by Joe Brady, and Josh Allen is gonna assume that mantle, and he wants to.
That's the thing.
Plenty of players, they don't wanna hear from the coach between the end of the season and the start of the off-season program.
They don't wanna be bothered.
They want some time on their own.
But if you're Josh Allen, and the clock is ticking on your career and your legacy And look, it's not like his career's gonna end anytime soon, but you know, I've talked about this-In connection with the Bills' overall urgency, how many more spins do they have?
Every post-season loss- Yep is the expiration of another 365-day cycle.
How many more of them?
Grand scheme of things, not many.
Grand scheme of things, blink your eye and Josh Allen's retired.
Grand scheme of things, well, hell, grand scheme of things, we're all dead.
But the- Right big picture, we're, we're already dead.
Dr. Doom returns.
But Happy Friday.
Another Friday, another, another Friday closer to death.
But- Yeah but there, there really isn't much time left for Josh Allen to get to where he wants to be.
So you bet your ass he and Joe Brady spent a lot of time grinding DJ Moore tape, communicating about how Moore fits into the offense.
Showing him, "Look, look at that.
Look at, look how I ran that route.
See that?
Boom.
Right there.
Look at that.
I don't know why they didn't throw it to him, look at that.
Look at that.
Look at Think of what you could do with this guy."
So, so Brady's the conductor, right?
Yeah.
And I'm gonna defer to his knowledge.
Now, if he's wrong, oh, boy.
Like, if DJ Moore never gets the ball and he's doing this on the sideline to Josh Allen like, that's a problem for Joe Brady.
But I think the, the speed and the resolve, and I think if Sean McDermott's there, maybe they don't do this deal 'cause McDermott doesn't know Moore.
Mc- McDermott doesn't have that May- maybe they do Alec Pierce, I don't know.
Yeah, I think they do a deal.
Look, every move they make at receiver- Yeah every move they make at receiver is gonna be magnified now because we go from, "Oh, our receivers are fine," except for Keon Coleman, who the coaches wanted, "But the receivers are fine.
Everything's fine.
The talent's fine."
Now they're to go out and grab one guy.
Let's see who else they grab.
Let's see how much they do.
And I've, I've been saying this for weeks, if the Bills make a concerted effort to improve the talent of the team, specifically at receiver, they're gonna be admitting maybe it was some- maybe, maybe talent was a l- maybe it was- Yes just a little, maybe it was a little part of it.
And, and, and by, by the way, and, and I was just reminded of this.
Was it Why didn't people bring this up more?
Maybe they did.
when, when Terry Pegula said, "Hey, it was the coaches."
You know, this guy, Brandon Beane, he's taking the, he's taking the shots, I don't know why, but the coaches wanted They, they wanted Keon Coleman.
Why doesn't anybody bring up Do you remember the quote?
I do, I r- I, I, I think I heard it or I saw it.
Oh.
Do you remember the quote from Josh Allen?
We, we played it.
W- well, I don't know about- Good the quote from Josh Allen, but I know the quote from Brandon Beane when Keon Coleman was drafted.
Oh, yeah.
But that, but- They, they had one of their, you know, all-access social media things.
Beane clearly wanted the guy.
Yeah, and, and Josh Allen did, too.
Josh Allen was in on it, and I think he told Coleman, "You're the guy I wanted.
I looked at receivers in the draft.
You're I'm glad we got you.
You're the one I wanted to get."
Now, maybe you say that, maybe you say that to all the receivers.
Oh, you make 'em all feel special.
"Hey, I'm glad we got you.
You're the one.
We're gonna do great things."
But it wasn't just, the coaches.
Clearly it was Brandon Beane, but also Josh Allen wanted Keon Coleman, too.
And so yeah, watching that film, I mean, I'm sure he's watched film of other receivers and said, "Yeah, that looks good."
You really never know until, you get the guy in OTAs or you All these quarterbacks now invite their receivers out to some cool place and they catch and throw and they, you know, have cigars and drinks, whatever, and just have a good time and bond.
You won't know until that actually happens.
But I do know this for Buffalo.
What, what pressure now?
What pressure in 2026?
You got your new stadium.
You were passed by the Patriots.
You were passed by the young Patriots.
You have a soft schedule, all this stuff.
They win the division.
Drake May gets to the Super Bowl before Josh Allen.
That doesn't even make sense.
And so you look at all the things that are happening, not just with your franchise, but in your division.
How are you looking up at the New England Patriots?
Now actually, I, I wonder if they actually believe they're looking up at the Patriots or if that was just a fluke based on the schedule and how things kind of, fell in '25.
But they did lose a game.
They did split with them.
They split with the Patriots, they lost the home game, they beat 'em on the road, but they lose the division and now they are kind of scrambling.
As you said, they have to take advantage of, of the prime of Josh Allen, 'cause it goes quickly.
