The evolution of crocodylian high-performance biting involved a reorganization of the feeding apparatus. Whereas modern crocodylians have flat, robust skulls, crocodylian ancestors had tall skulls and lacked the characters that help crocodylians employ high forces. To assess the biomechanical effects of changing muscles and cranial joints, we used CT data to create 3D models of extant and fossil suchians. Using osteological correlates to reconstruct muscles, muscle forces were distributed and used as input for finite element models and used to estimate bite and joint forces. Geographic information systems were adopted to quantify joint articular shape. We found successive changes to cranial joints preceded muscle shifts. After the pterygoid buttress expanded and the quadrate and palate sutured to the braincase in protosuchians, jaw muscles were free to expand and shift attachments through crocodyliform evolution. Muscle orientations became more mediolateral as the skull flattened, the pterygoideus ventralis muscle began inserting on the lateral mandible, and the depressor mandibulae muscle expanded its attachment on the enlarged retroarticular process. We found that working side jaw joint force is low during rostral bites; the joint is likely loaded in tension during shaking or the death roll. Joint area and force scale isometrically with body size, and joint force orientation is reflected in joint morphology. Joint pressures are remarkably consistent both with values reported in other in vivo and in vitro joint systems and with the range of joint pressures predicted to result in stable joint morphology by chondral modeling theory. These results depict coordinated coevolution of skull shape, muscle orientation, and joint loading in one of the great transformations in vertebrate evolution.