ORCHARD PARK — Josh Allen took his usual Wednesday seat in the field house. He didn’t say a word, he just gazed ahead, waiting for the questions to come.
Allen was speaking for the first time since offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey was fired Tuesday, less than 12 hours after a 24-22 loss to the Denver Broncos. It was the culmination of a season’s worth of inconsistency dating back to last season, coming to a head the last six weeks and Dorsey was ultimately saddled with the blame.
Dorsey had been close to Allen since joining the Buffalo Bills coaching staff as the quarterbacks coach in 2019, ascending to offensive coordinator in 2022 after Brian Daboll left to become the head coach of the New York Giants. Dorsey was the man Allen wanted for the job, many claiming he was hand-picked, although he was the logical replacement for Daboll.
Statistically, Dorsey was the architect of one of the best offenses in the NFL. Since taking over as coordinator, the Bills are third in the NFL in points and fourth in total offense, making his firing unusual.
And while the firing may have come eventually, the likelihood of it happening if the Bills beat Denver is slim. And now, at 5-5, the Bills have +104 odds to make the playoffs, according to FanDuel.
“It hurts a lot to see someone you care about go through a situation like that and to know that if I could have done more, if this offense could have done more, we wouldn’t have had to do something like that,” Allen said. “So again, it’s an unfortunate series of events that have led up to it but again, as much as you can sit here and feel sorry for yourself and you can sulk on what’s going on, we got a game to prepare for and it’s four days away, so we can’t pay too much attention to it.”
Allen is among many Bills players who have never dealt with a coach getting fired, particularly during the season. Running back Latavius Murray is among the few, having twice played for teams that fired a head coach midseason during stints with the Raiders and Broncos.
The decision also came a week after Murray called a players-only meeting in an attempt to find solutions to Buffalo’s offensive struggles. There still isn’t much of a playbook to handle the situation, but players are trying to avoid survivor’s guilt, knowing Dorsey’s firing hinged a great deal on their performance this season.
“You care about a person and their families and their relationships out of it,” Murray said. “But it’s also a business, you understand, and so, with that in mind, definitely gotta turn the page and keep moving forward because we got a game coming up Sunday.”
The question now becomes how much is going to change with quarterbacks coach Joe Brady now taking over as play-caller. Implementing an entirely different offense isn’t feasible with seven games remaining in the regular season. Bills coach Sean McDermott acknowledged that many of the changes need to come “within the margins.”
Brady can cut down the playbook to focus on what has been working, but it has been clear McDermott pivoted to Brady to provide a spark and inject some energy into an offense that has scored 10 first-quarter points over the last six games and has scored more than 25 since Week 4. McDermott declined to answer when asked how much the scheme can be changed at this point in the season.
“I feel strongly about this,” McDermott said. “That coordinator position — just like the head coach position — it’s a leadership position. You better have the X’s and O’s because the job really boils down to it’s a leadership position and that’s where I mentioned about it being in the margins and all the intangibles that go with developing a culture are important, and it starts with the leadership aspect of the job.”
Allen and the Bills now have to adjust to a new leader, but this time they will have had six days instead of an entire offseason. Brady’s promotion doesn’t come with congratulations, but instead a short work week as Buffalo attempts to make an improbable run to the playoffs.
“We’ve got no choice but to be comfortable,” Allen said. “But again, (Brady’s) the same voice that we’ve heard in the quarterback room for the last year and a half now. A lot of talking that goes on in that room, so I’m pretty comfortable with his voice.”