With the 2025 NFL season officially in the rearview, it's time to get an early lookahead at what could be in store for the Bills in 2026.
These are five key questions going into the offseason.
1 – What will new leadership look like?
Bills fans have a general idea of who Joe Brady is as an offensive play caller, but with full autonomy now as head coach his overarching approach is bound to be different than his predecessor to some degree. Coordinators often take their cues from their head coach in how aggressive or conservative they might be in a given week. Now Brady is the one setting the agenda for the team both in the offseason, and with weekly game plans come the regular season.
For the first time in a decade, there isn't a familiarity with how things are going to function on a daily basis at One Bills Drive. That's for Joe Brady to lay out, communicate, delegate, and execute with his coaching staff and players when they return in April.
"I think it starts with a new energy, a new mentality and a new vision," Brady said. "A new energy that I've got to drive every single day. I believe people are going to feed off that."
He also gave us some hints as to what his vision was and the kind of results he's seeking.
"I believe in communication, connection, accountability, love," Brady said. "I said to the staff, quiet teams don't win. Quiet teams do not win. I'm going to do everything in my power to have that communication line open in everything I do. I believe in that. And then love. Connected teams win. If you love the man next to you and you care more about his success than your own, that's when you're going to win football games."
Brady isn't interested in wholesale changes. He knows he's inheriting a team that has been enormously successful earning playoff berths each of the last seven seasons and winning at least one playoff game each of the last six. But every year is different for every team in the NFL, and his team has to embrace the parts of the operation that will be different.
"We don't just get to pick up where we left off and think that, 'Hey, we're in the position that next week we're going to be in the conference championship game,'" Brady said. "There's going to be a lot of work. I believe in what Mr. Pegula always says, we're going to work tirelessly with it. We're going to have the competitive stamina to start over. But I'm excited about the direction that we have and the people that we have, and I believe in that."
2 – How will the defense adapt to a scheme change?
Buffalo's defensive scheme might be one of the more significant changes we witness in the club's preparations for the 2026 campaign.
With new defensive coordinator, Jim Leonhard, subscribing to a much different scheme than the one employed here over the last nine seasons, there will be a stark contrast. But he doesn't believe in throwing everything out from the previous regime, especially in an all-important transition year.
Leonhard understands what his players will have to undergo with the scheme change having been through it himself multiple times as a former NFL safety.
"With Rex Ryan in that scheme, Mike Pettine, Jim O'Neill, I was in the system for six years in four different places," said Leonhard. "So, to see how it morphed from one place to the next of what you kept, what you changed in terminology, how the personnel dictates how you really set up the game plan. And overall, just the scheme starting in the offseason.
"So, as a player, being able to do that through four different phases of my career, that really sparked my interest in coaching where, 'If I get into coaching, this is what it's going to look like.' And I was able to take that straight to Wisconsin and implement it. We want to create a defense that we can all be proud of. A defense that the NFL doesn't want to play against."
Buffalo's new defensive play caller believes there is a level of versatility on the roster that will allow him and the defensive staff to piece things together and then assess where some holes might need to be filled.
"There is going to be change," Leonhard admitted. "It's been a system that they've played in for a long time and just the structure of what they've done and how they've done it, and why they have done it. It's going to be a change for them, but we're excited as a coaching staff to create something that is best for their skill sets and fits their personalities. I am big on flexibility and being able to play to your best players and force offenses to deal with their own problems."
And knowing Leonhard is an expert teacher, the learning curve for many holdovers from last year's roster should find the transition more than manageable.
3 – How will cap space be created?
The week before the Super Bowl, the league announced to their 32 member clubs that the range of the 2026 salary cap will be between $301.2 and $305.7 million, up more than $20 million from last year's cap ($279.2M).
That will make Bills' President of Football Operations and general manager, Brandon Beane's job a bit less daunting as he again has to do some maneuvering to get the team in cap compliance by the start of the new league year on March 11th.
"We have a lot of work to do this offseason, like we do every year," Beane said. "We'll have decisions (to make)."
In previous offseasons, Beane has used every avenue to create more cap space to not only become cap compliant, but also to create the space necessary to make some player acquisitions to enhance the roster in free agency.
Player releases, contract extensions, contract restructures, and player trades have all been cards that Beane has played to improve the team's cap situation heading into a new league year. And he'll have to turn to those again to get Buffalo's fiscal situation to a place where he can compete with other clubs for free agent talent.
4 – How will Buffalo's large free agent group impact roster turnover?
The Bills have 22 unrestricted free agents and three restricted free agents. It's a sizable jump from last season when they had just 12 unrestricted and a single restricted free agent.
This combined with a scheme change on defense could lead to greater roster turnover than we've seen in recent years.
"Some of it is going to be dictated by salary cap and guys who are free agents, so they'll have opportunities to see what their value is and what we can afford within the cap," said Beane. "But part of the roster will change because the coaching style changes. That tends to change some personnel things."
And that's what the personnel department is doing with Joe Brady's staff right now. Assessing the current players and the current free agents and deciding who fits.
With nine other teams hiring new head coaches this offseason, there will be a bunch of teams with players under contract that no longer fit their plans. That could provide Beane and other NFL GMs with a more robust trade market.
For example, the Tennessee Titans are moving from a 3-4 defensive scheme to a 4-3 under new head coach Robert Saleh. While the Bills are doing the opposite. Can a trade be consummated that helps both clubs with better player fits?
5 – In what ways will the pass rush and receiving corps change for the better?
Buffalo's pass rush and receiving corps were two areas of the team that did not provide the level of production needed to help a playoff caliber team advance beyond the Divisional Round this season.
The Bills were in the bottom half of the league in sacks for the second consecutive season, forcing Buffalo to dial up blitzes to generate consistent pressure. And while pressure was achieved with blitz packages, getting quarterbacks on the ground on a regular basis proved elusive.
As for the wide receivers on the roster, outside of Khalil Shakir and Tyrell Shavers, they struggled to stay healthy or get consistent time on the field.
Buffalo's offense had to lean heavily on their tight ends in the passing game, as evidenced by Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox finishing second and third on the team in receiving yards. Buffalo's three tight ends had 12 touchdowns, one more than the 11 turned in by a total of eight receivers.
So how can the club raise production in these two critical areas?
A scheme change on defense can certainly help. Defensive coordinator, Jim Leonhard, who spent the past two seasons on a Denver staff that saw their defense lead the league in sacks two years running, said they'll be aggressive with their pass rush, but not reckless.
"There's a right and a wrong way in my opinion on how to attack quarterbacks in the NFL and it changes a little bit week to week based on their skill set," Leonhard said. "And you have to play to the strengths of your players.
"We were able to do it a certain way in Denver. That may not be the way that it looks here, but you have to affect the quarterback. You have to try to change the comfort level of that quarterback. You've got to be able to speed him up. You've got to be able to slow him down."
Player acquisition will also be important as Beane, and his personnel department will undoubtedly target players that are proven in Leonhard's type of defensive scheme. Draft analysts consider this to be a solid year for edge rusher in the draft. Adding talent at a controlled cost in the form of a draft choice could go a long way in augmenting Buffalo's pass rush.
As for the receiver position, Beane was enormously successful when he acquired a number one wide receiver via trade in the 2020 offseason. Knowing the Bills want to get over the playoff hump, acquiring a proven difference maker in this fashion is one potential avenue knowing Beane worked hard to add one to the roster via trade prior to last year's deadline.
"I want number one receivers everywhere, I do," said Beane. "But there were teams out there with number one receivers that haven't made it as far as we have. Maybe it's because their O-line isn't as good. Maybe it's because they made concessions on defense or other areas. You've got to make some concessions. But I promise you, we're looking. And to the point about the trade deadline when I came in here and we talked about some of the players that we tried to acquire. We're always trying to acquire them."
Free agency is another avenue, though you often pay a premium to land a proven top flight wideout.
The 2026 draft class is considered to be solid at the receiver position by several draft experts. Knowing Buffalo is navigating real cap constraints an investment in the position via the draft is a very real prospect as well.
