Finding the next great young coach or coordinator has become a trend in the NFL since the Los Angeles Rams hired then 30-year-old Sean McVay in 2017 and found themselves in the Super Bowl just one season later.
This offseason, the next potential great young coordinator on the market was LSU passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach, Joe Brady, who helped lead the Tigers to a national championship and oversaw a record-setting offense that many experts consider to be the greatest offense in the history of college football.
All this ushered quarterback Joe Burrow to win the Heisman Trophy and become the first draft pick in this year’s NFL Draft.
As a result, the Carolina Panthers hired Brady just one day after winning the national championship with the Tigers, making him the youngest offensive coordinator in the NFL at just 30. New Panthers head coach Matt Rhule is counting on the prodigy to bring that offensive genius Brady’s been praised so highly about to Charlotte.
"For being such a young guy, he is a football grinder," Rhule said. "A lot of guys, they have a system and they're so smart. Joe's a grinder. He's constantly working on football, and I think the players recognize that."
Now overseeing a Panthers offense that will have a new quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater, arguably the top running back with Christian McCaffrey, and a handful of fast, young receivers, Brady will have every opportunity to make his name as an NFL coach.
Carolina fans and defensive coordinators across the league can expect Brady to incorporate some, if not a lot, of the offensive style that worked so well in Baton Rouge, La.
"I'd be foolish to not bring a lot of what I did at LSU to the Carolina Panthers," he said.
Despite his age, Brady is no stranger to the NFL.
The former College of William & Mary wide receiver spent the 2017 and 2018 seasons with the New Orleans Saints as an offensive assistant.
That's where he first met Bridgewater.
"The thing with Joe is that it's a special bond," Bridgewater said. "When I first got to New Orleans, Joe was the guy that took the time to teach me the offense. I got traded there right at the end of the preseason and I didn't really have the time to learn the system and Joe was the guy that went the extra mile for me."
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Before working for head coach Sean Payton in New Orleans, Brady was a graduate assistant in the college ranks at Penn State in 2015 and 2016. Prior to that, he received his first coaching job as the William & Mary linebackers coach, where he served in 2013 and 2014.
Brady has been able to gain more knowledge about the game of football and pick the brains of head coach Jimmye Laycock at William & Mary, head coach James Franklin and offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead at Penn State, and LSU head coach Ed Orgeron.
In the NFL, he soaked up all the information he could from offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael and quarterbacks coach Joe Lombardi.
"I've been fortunate everywhere I've been to have guys that I'm learning from firsthand as opposed to having to study tape and learn from that," Brady said. "I think as all of us coaches are sitting there and trying to get better every offseason and are studying what other people are doing and trying to improve from that standpoint, but I've been truly fortunate with the places that I've been where I have been able to learn first-hand and ask questions to the guys every day which has helped me get to the point where I'm at right now."
The first opportunity came from Carmichael at William & Mary after his playing career ended, but it wasn’t necessarily where one might expect an offensive whiz kid to cut his teeth. Brady worked with the linebackers, of all positions.
Brady now jokes that he actually had more tackles in his college career than receptions, and coaching defense gave him an entirely new view of the game.
"It opened my eyes to so much from a defense perspective from a linebackers standpoint about the gaps, run game and protection and identifying that," Brady said. "I was able to flip it around as an offensive coach and say 'Hey, this is what gave me issues as a coach.' I learned so much from that standpoint of you think you know offense because you're a part of it, and all I knew was the wide receiver position.
"When you go to the defensive side, you learn so much about what offenses are doing and how they're attacking you in their coverages. I would not be the coach I am today if I didn't coach on the defensive side of the ball."
That analytical approach of understanding each side of the ball is a big reason why he's had so much success so fast.
"I'm not sure there is a guy his age that is smarter in football than him," Panthers defensive coordinator Phil Snow said. "I think he's done a great job with his career and the people that have mentored him have done a great job. I just think he's one of the really good young talents in football."
It doesn't hurt that aside from watching his favorite show, The Office, being with his girlfriend, Lauren, and playing with their dog, Brady's passion has always and only been football since he was a kid growing up in football hotbed Miami, Fla.
"I don't know if my father (Joe) and I talk about anything besides football," Brady said. "If I'm coming home at 2 a.m., he'll wake up to talk to me about the game. He coached me a lot growing up and he was hard on me, and we had season tickets going to Miami Dolphins games, we would go to the fan fests and the practices. My love for football started with my father, hands down."
That passion and knowledge is a big reason why some Panthers have already enjoyed having Brady lead the way on offense.
"Just knowing way more than what routes you got," wide receiver Curtis Samuel said about Brady's coaching style. "Understanding the defense, understanding the whole concept of the offense, he's about making you a smarter football player, which is great for us not just knowing 'Oh, we got this route,’ but understanding why you're there and what you're doing and what everyone else is doing so you can execute your job at the highest way possible.
"I think that's great for us that he holds us to such a standard and to go out there and compete."'
Brady will have to gameplan for a lot better defenses jumping from the college level to the NFL, but that standard he's already implementing with Carolina's offense is what he hopes will create more success.
"The system is the system and it takes care of itself," Brady said. "The guys can believe in my philosophy and the system. Whether they do or they don't, in order to have success, the guys have to believe in one another.
"The way that I'm incorporating schemes or a philosophy, to me, that's second hand seeing how the guys are working with each other after and together. If I'm calling plays and they believe in each other, it really doesn't matter what I'm calling."