Scooter Hobbs column: Brady-Ensminger team led to Brady’s big NFL break

Published 9:13 pm Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Everybody knew it was coming and now it’s here, maybe ahead of schedule. Joe Brady has an NFL head coaching job.

Since 2019 it’s been his destiny, with head coach written all over him.

It doesn’t make the Bills’ firing of previous head coach Sean McDermott any less puzzling (or less idiotic), but it comes as a surprise to no one.

Well, you suppose it was an oddity that Brady was already on the Bills staff as McDermott’s offensive coordinator. Normally, subordinates don’t get promoted when connected to the failings of the boss. It almost seems like it’s an admission that McDermott should not have been fired (and, by the way, he shouldn’t have).

That’s between Buffalo owner Terry Pegula and his conscience.

Good for Brady. He deserves it.

Still, this seems like as good of a time as any to clear up some misconceptions about Brady at LSU, and what he meant to the Tigers’ 2019 national championship, which might have been the greatest team in the history of college football.

Cut to the chase — Brady was a key component of that amazing team, no question. It made such a good tale that, through no fault of his own, he probably got more of the credit than he deserved.

Anyway, you probably remember the story.

It actually begins the year before, 2018, when head coach Ed Orgeron was walking off the field at Tiger Stadium following a 29-0 loss to Alabama.

Before he reached the dressing room tunnel, maybe a bit embarrassed, he’d already decided that the next year LSU’s offense was going to look a lot different.

He wasn’t sure how, exactly, or really even if it would be better or worse, but it was dang well going to be different.

As he and Steve Ensminger were approaching the dressing room, he relayed his epiphany to his veteran offensive coordinator.

It was music to Ensminger’s ears, is all it was. He’d always had a reputation as a gunslinger, dating back to his playing days as an LSU quarterback, but often had been handcuffed by what the Tigers traditionally did on offense.

Fast forward. Orgeron was close with then-Saints head coach Sean Payton, an offensive whisperer of some renown, and sought his advice.

Payton suggested he talk to a young Saints staffer who wasn’t even a full-blown assistant yet, more of an analyst.

Nobody had ever even heard of Joe Brady.

But Brady came up to LSU to give the LSU staff a clinic on his innovative offensive ideas.

Orgeron was in on some of the meetings — though not all — the coaching give-and-take as they all  went through the wherefores and what-ifs of Brady’s Xs and Os

But the feedback Oregon got from his staff was that they were blown away by all the ccrazy ideas of the 28-year-old wunderkind.

He seemed to have X-and-O dance moves for everything a defense might conjure up.

So what started out as a coaching clinic ended up as a coaching hire. Oregon brought Brady to LSU full time.

Payton wasn’t sure if it was a good career move for Brady and told him so at the time.

“Shows what I know,” Payton would later laugh.

Granted, it was a palate any offensive whiz kid would cherish getting five minutes alone to tinker with — Joe Burrow throwing to Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase and Terrace Marshall, not to mention Clyde Edwards-Helaine cut-back runs to break the monotony.

Some still debate if it was the best team in NCAA history, but virtually no one disagrees that it was the most explosive — 569 yards per game, 726 points, 60 touchdown passes for Heisman winner Burrow alone.

You could say Brady was the catalyst as virtually all of those weapons had been there the year before.

But, again, just to clear some things up, Brady was not the offensive coordinator for that offense, with wild pyrotechnics that often looked like a roman candle shot into a fireworks stand.

Ensminger had that title, and he was quite an offensive mind himself when turned loose. He also called most of the plays, though Brady certainly had input.

You wouldn’t have known it by reading most of the headlines, most of which leaned toward different versions of the Brady Breakthrough.

Yet one of the real keys to that season was the way Ensminger and Brady were able to work together, seamlessly it seemed.

It would have been easy for the veteran Ensminger to resent the young whippersnapper getting the credit for the kind of offense Coach “E” had always wanted to run. It would have been just as easy for a young up-and-comer like Brady to make sure the credit was there to pave his career path.

None of that happened.

Egos were set aside as they both appeared to be having a blast — almost like a father-son outing, a proud papa gazing proudly at a son exploring new terrain while the youngster looks back up in admiration.

It bothered Ensminger not one iota if Brady got the credit.

When TV would catch glimpses of them doing their magic together side by side in the press box, it was almost as much fun to watch as the Burrow-Chase antics.

That season likely went a long way in preparing Brady for the big job he has now with the Bills.

And you can bet that nobody is happier for him than Steve Ensminger.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics for the American Press. Contact him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com