What makes Bills offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey tick and how did he get here? (2024)

A monotonous pattern emerges when researching what has been said about what makes Ken Dorsey tick.

He’s a football egghead, rather boring, really into film study and overpreparation. The most iridescent comments regard his blistering competitiveness, but how uncommon is that in the sports world?

Those stories were written over and again while Dorsey quarterbacked the University of Miami to a 38-2 record over his four years, winning the 2001 national championship and slipping one victory short of repeating his senior season.

Yet he didn’t receive the requisite love. The Hurricanes were so nauseatingly loaded that many observers considered Dorsey a plug-and-play game manager, a sentiment reinforced when he became a seventh-round draft choice who couldn’t cut it in the NFL.

Dorsey wasn’t written about anymore, at least not until he returned to the game in 2011 as a scout and quickly emerged as a respected quarterbacks coach and play designer. Even then, the references were dusty: uber-cerebral, mild-mannered, but a rabid competitor.

“You know, Ken Dorsey was a little bit different,” said Kenny Kelly, the Hurricanes’ previous starting quarterback. “Ken’s all about his business, and he’ll also do his business when nobody’s watching or around. He’ll go in a room by himself, lock the door and hash out what needs to get done.”

But there must be more to Dorsey, perhaps the most fascinating wrinkle on the 2022 Buffalo Bills.

Beyond the tropes, fans don’t know much about Buffalo’s new offensive coordinator, a first-time play caller for the Super Bowl favorite and successor to the crowd-pleasing Brian Daboll.

The Athletic went on a quest the past couple of weeks to learn about Dorsey from those who’ve worked closest with him — those he played for, played with and coached.

Sure enough, Dorsey is more than a deep-thinking homebody with a fiery streak.

A significant aspect of quarterback Josh Allen’s charm is how he so decisively has overcome his doubters.

With the exception of high school — we’re talking Pop Warner, Reedley College, University of Wyoming, Buffalo Bills — Allen entered each level of football no better than second string. He graduated Firebaugh High with zero scholarship offers, most painfully ignored by Fresno State, his favorite team. He left Reedley with two offers, but only after Wyoming lost preferred recruit Eric Dungey to Syracuse. Eastern Michigan withdrew its proposal after Allen visited Wyoming.

Dorsey can put himself in Allen’s cleats.

Dorsey grew up in Orinda, Calif., a quaint town of about 20,000 people 15 miles northeast of San Francisco. You’d think the future record-setting passer at Quarterback U would’ve caught the high school football program’s attention at an early age.

Floyd Burnsed, then the coach at Miramonte High, first heard about Dorsey from a less-than-credible source.

“It started with his brother, Adam, a 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8, 145-pound backup free safety on our team,” Burnsed said. “He told me, ‘My brother is going to be the next great quarterback here at Miramonte.’ I remember thinking, ‘OK …'”

Dorsey hadn’t played a down of organized football until he got to Miramonte and didn’t exactly ignite the program upon arrival. He began on the freshman squad and was relegated to junior varsity as a sophom*ore.

But in two varsity seasons, Dorsey won a pair of North Coast Section championships. He threw for 4,968 yards and 52 touchdowns. Dorsey lost two games over his four prep seasons.

“He was not a five-star recruit,” Burnsed said. “I think when he was at Miramonte, he was about 6-4, 165 pounds, but I thought he was a lot like Joe Montana, who anticipated the routes and got the ball when the receivers came off their break.

“I have two young quarterbacks now that are juniors, and they want to wait for the guy to get wide open before they throw the route. Ken was able to anticipate the opening and get the ball there.”

Dorsey’s late production nonetheless allowed him to envision playing for the University of Tennessee or one of California’s top programs.

Tennessee passed on him for Chris Simms, son of former Giants star Phil Simms.

USC coach Paul Hackett, a former Miramonte High quarterback himself, told Dorsey there was no chance to play until true freshman starter Carson Palmer graduated.

“Rick Neuheisel came by and watched about two minutes of film on Ken,” Burnsed said of the former UCLA assistant who was then the coach at Colorado. “He said ‘His arm’s not strong enough to play for us.'”

One week before national signing day, Simms flipped his commitment from Tennessee to Texas, and Volunteers coach Phillip Fulmer scrambled to get Burnsed on the phone.

“They wanted to offer Ken and have him on a plane,” Burnsed said. “I talked to Ken, and he said, ‘No, they made their choice, and I committed to Miami.’

“That’s a 17-year-old kid. He stuck with his word.”

Dorsey wasn’t the Hurricanes’ preferred QB recruit either.

Although coach Butch Davis had pursued Dorsey for months, the real prize that winter was Florida’s Mr. Football, Anquan Boldin, who chose Florida State and converted to receiver with the intention of switching back once Chris Weinke graduated.

With so much focus on Boldin, the South Florida media paid Dorsey little mind upon his commitment to the Hurricanes. In coverage of national signing day, Dorsey was the last recruit mentioned in the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post.

“Ken was an afterthought,” Burnsed said. “Kind of amazing.”

Miami was so dominant over the next four seasons, its rosters so loaded with future first-round draft picks, All-Pros and Hall of Famers, that Dorsey’s function seemed elemental.

Greatness never looked so mundane.

That’s what happens when you share the same field as running backs Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore and Najeh Davenport, receivers Reggie Wayne, Santana Moss and Andre Johnson and tight ends Jeremy Shockey, Kellen Winslow Jr. and Bubba Franks.

The defensive stars included nose tackle Vince Wilfork, linebackers Jonathan Vilma and Dan Morgan, cornerbacks Antrel Rolle and Phillip Buchanon and safeties Ed Reed and Sean Taylor.

The 2001 Hurricanes alone featured 17 eventual first-round selections. Of the 22 starters from their Rose Bowl national title victory, only three weren’t drafted.

Thus, their quarterback often was viewed as Eli Whitney in shoulder pads.

Dorsey, however, was no interchangeable part.

“I don’t think you could have plugged just anybody into that situation,” Portis said. “Kenny D wasn’t going to start no sh*t, but he had that dog in him where he wasn’t going to take no sh*t neither.”

Portis declared Dorsey equal in importance to a player The Athletic ranked No. 39 in NFL history, a man considered one of football’s all-time badasses.

“Ed Reed was everything that they said he was when it came to practice, being vocal and leadership,” Portis said. “Kenny D was the same person that Ed Reed was. You had more than two leaders, but two of the best people you could put all the attention on.

“That kept everyone else’s ego down because Shockey had an ego. I had an ego. Willis had an ego. Bryant McKinnie was coming into his own. Vernon Carey was on the verge. Roscoe Parrish was jumping off the porch.

“Everything came together because of Ed and Kenny D.”

Derek Anderson didn’t play with Dorsey at Miami, but they have been together at several stops and in various roles. They were teammates with the Cleveland Browns. Anderson was a backup for the Carolina Panthers and Bills while Dorsey was his quarterbacks coach.

“It could have gone sideways in a minute; that’s for sure,” Anderson said. “He just has an innate ability to gather dudes.”

As a true freshman in 1999, Dorsey joined a program coming off three years of NCAA probation and the elimination of 31 scholarships for violations committed under previous coaches Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson. Just two years earlier, the Hurricanes went 5-6 and lost all four games against ranked opponents, the most gruesome a 47-0 dirt nap at Florida State.

Before Dorsey’s last game, with the Hurricanes playing in the Fiesta Bowl gunning for a second straight national title, quarterbacks coach Dan Werner noted that with all the superstars and coaches who passed through the program the previous four years, there was one essential constant. “Do the math. Ken Dorsey is our program,” Werner said back then. Larry co*ker, the head coach from 2001 through 2006, told the New York Daily News before Dorsey’s finale, “For us, there’s no question he’s the one player we need on the field.”

Whatever the gangly, barely touted Dorsey lacked in flash, he overcame in work ethic and humility. Portis noted most of the team didn’t know what constituted earnest film study until they saw Dorsey get after it. Despite Dorsey’s infamous temper, he rarely got rattled.

“It’s a razor-sharp edge when you’re dealing with that many personalities, especially when you’re dealing with that many alpha males,” said Cleo Lemon, the former NFL quarterback. Dorsey backed up Lemon with the Toronto Argonauts in 2010. “Everybody in that locker room is top dog. They don’t have their accomplishments without that mindset.

“Ken just knew how to understand the personalities in a locker room. That’s a strength a lot of people don’t consider.”

Anderson was more blunt in his assessment of Dorsey’s approach to winning over his teammates.

“He just doesn’t give a f*ck, to be honest with you,” Anderson said. “He just doesn’t care who you are, what you are, what you’ve done. Ken had confidence in himself, was not afraid to tell people when they’re wrong.

“When you go on the field and say, ‘Hey, when you run that bang-8, you’ve got to plant on your right foot and my throw will hit you in the face.’ Then he does it, and he does it again, and he does it again. That proves to them that, ‘Although this guy is pushing me and might be an asshole, he’s the guy I need to follow.'”

The results spoke for themselves.

In his first season at Miami, Dorsey settled in behind redshirt sophom*ore Kenny Kelly, who owned Florida’s prep records for career passing yards and touchdowns.

Kelly suffered a partially torn knee ligament in the ninth game. A week later against Rutgers, Dorsey became the first true freshman quarterback to start for Miami in 21 years, a feat Jim Kelly, Vinny Testaverde, Bernie Kosar, Steve Walsh, Craig Erickson and future Heisman Trophy winner Gino Torretta cannot claim.

Kenny Kelly saw the future by the end of the season.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1997 made Kelly a second-round pick and gave him a $450,000 signing bonus to play the outfield in their minor-league system. Worried that the next football injury would squelch a four-year contract proposal, Kelly chose baseball.

The door was wide open for Dorsey to take over a program that was about to explode.

“Having Ken there made it easier for me to leave, but I think about it all the time,” Kelly said. Kelly played professional baseball for a decade and saw 26 games with the Devil Rays, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. “What would have (happened) if I’d stayed and battled with Ken Dorsey?

“It made me feel a lot better to see Ken Dorsey step in and take that team over. In that way, I didn’t feel like I left my guys hanging.”

Dorsey didn’t feel like a true leader at Miami until his junior season. He explained those first two seasons boasted too damn many established leaders for him to feel like their true peer.

He especially valued the perspective of Miami’s top receivers those first two years. The seniors were Wayne, Moss and Andre King, elites who endured the dark times.

“They showed me how to do it,” Dorsey said. “They were team guys. If Reggie didn’t have a bunch of catches and Santana did, they never complained about it. They knew the bigger picture. I never had to worry about guys whispering in the corner.”

Dorsey’s coaches and sophom*ore teammates disagree that his emergence as a true leader happened so late. They point to the Hurricanes’ 2000 landmark victory over No. 1 Florida State. That showed the world Miami was back. Their 19-year-old quarterback made sure of it.

“The thing that lit up our program and really brought us back was beating Florida State in the Orange Bowl,” Miami coach Butch Davis said. “Kenny led us. He never panicked.”

Miami’s defense was sublime, holding FSU to three points in five red zone trips. Yet the Seminoles led 24-20 with 97 seconds to go, putting them on the verge of their sixth consecutive series win.

With an Orange Bowl crowd of 80,905 in full throat, Dorsey completed six of his seven passes, the last one a 13-yard strike to Shockey, to put Miami ahead with 46 seconds left. FSU kicker Matt Munyon’s 49-yard field-goal attempt sailed wide right.

“I’ll never forget in the locker room after the game,” Hurricanes offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski said, “while the team was celebrating, Ed Reed pulled Kenny up with him and said, ‘You’re our guy.’

“That was kind of the moment he took over the team, when Ed let him be one of the leaders. It was a moment where everybody accepted him as their leader.”

Asked about Chudzinski’s coming-of-age memory, Dorsey said the aftermath of that defining victory was too much of a blur to recall specifics.

But the quarterback conceded it was monumental for his growth. He executed in the crucible. Miami averaged 3.4 yards a carry, but Dorsey completed 27 of his 42 attempts — 10 targets had at least one catch — for 328 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions.

“Obviously, playing the quarterback position you’ve got to be a leader, but you’ve got to go out and perform,” Dorsey said. “That gives you the credibility with your peers. That happened on that day.”

Dorsey’s ascension as a leading man in one of the world’s sexiest cities never threatened to upend his straight-laced reputation.

He enjoyed living vicariously through his teammates when he got leering questions about their activities the night before on South Beach or in Coconut Grove.

That’s because he usually was in bed by 9 p.m. after a ribald evening of “Madden.”

Brett Romberg, the Hurricanes’ rambunctious center and Dorsey’s roommate, frequently regaled reporters with anecdotes about their divergent lifestyles. Romberg ragged on the schmaltzy, frequent visits from Dorsey’s mother and the quarterback’s fondness for Hamburger Helper.

Romberg owned Cane, a 110-pound Rottweiler. So he found it amusing that, when he woke up each morning, Dorsey already would be parked on the sofa, eating scrambled eggs and watching “SportsCenter” with his kitty cat, Stifler, named after the skirt-chasing “American Pie” character.

“A normal tabby, black and gray,” Dorsey said. “I had a couple cats as a kid, and they were generic. I wanted to get a cool, exotic breed, a Persian or whatever. Sure enough, I end up with the most generic cat you’ve ever seen in your life.

“He was overweight and moody. He would attack.”

Scandalous!

Back in the day, Dorsey’s most peculiar conduct revolved around superstition.

He wore two rubber bands on his left wrist as a fidget release. He took them off only at bedtime and changed them only when he got a haircut, but he got a haircut only before big games. Once, a rubber band broke before a game that wasn’t big enough for a haircut. He taped it back together.

His pregame ritual included walking in constant circles around the hotel ballroom until it was time to get on the bus. Even if the bus was different, he would count off the rows to ensure the same seat location. He had to listen to a pair of songs — one by Barenaked Ladies followed by Eagle-Eye Cherry’s “Save Tonight” — with the second tune timed to conclude as the bus pulled to a stop at the stadium.

Now, as a busy NFL coach and father, Dorsey said he doesn’t have the mental bandwidth to maintain such intricate routines.

“There were so many that it got tough to keep them all going,” Dorsey said.

But he might still have a couple, most importantly trying to park his Toyota Rav4 in the same spot each day.

“Otherwise, it’s sheer anarchy in the parking lot, and we can’t have that,” Dorsey deadpanned.

“I try to keep the same schedule during the week, which is more organization than superstition. Pregame, I try to have the same routine. There’s a little superstition involved, too, because if you don’t do it, you feel a little out of sorts.”

Superstition served Dorsey well, even if merely as a mental mechanism.

He lost two whole starts at Miami. The second was to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, his last game.

The first happened in 2000 and was a total team collapse, 34-29 to Washington.

“That was a game-changer for us,” Portis said. “I just remember that flight back, five or six hours. You’re checking the team’s pulse. We knew we had something special. We just needed to solidify it.”

Dorsey and Miami rebounded with 34 straight wins.

Portis recalled Dorsey having just one donkey game over that fantabulous stretch, and it was because the cerebral quarterback couldn’t believe his intense film study had misled him.

Deep into the 2001 national championship run, Dorsey had completed fewer than half of his attempts, didn’t have a touchdown and threw four interceptions mostly because Boston College kept undercutting Shockey’s routes.

“That was the only game where I can say he got rattled and insisted on making a play that wasn’t there,” Portis said. “It was a learning experience for all of us.

“When you believe in your work and you put in the film study and dissect the game the way he does, he knew that something was going to be there. The stubbornness to make it work was the issue. I know this is here!”

A defensive score helped the Hurricanes escape with an 18-7 victory.Dorsey never threw more interceptions than touchdowns for Miami again, but the four-pick game helped emphasize the narrative that the Hurricanes could win without him. That performance also might have cost him a Heisman Trophy.

The 2001 Hurricanes went undefeated. Along the way, they destroyed four top-14 opponents: Florida State 49-27, Syracuse 59-0, Washington 65-7 and Nebraska 37-14 in the Rose Bowl.

Even so, Dorsey finished third in Heisman Trophy balloting behind Nebraska option quarterback Eric Crouch and Florida quarterback Rex Grossman.Even though Dorsey won the less prestigious Maxwell Award that season, 2001 would be Dorsey’s best shot at college football’s ultimate honor.

The 2002 Hurricanes opened the season No. 1 and ran the regular-season table before succumbing to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.

Dorsey’s numbers stayed roughly the same. He broke several more Miami and Big East records. But this time he finished fifth in Heisman voting, second among Hurricanes. McGahee was fourth.

All those college evaluators who criticized Dorsey’s soft arm and slow feet were proven wrong, but four years later NFL scouts were docking points similarly. The San Francisco 49ers drafted him in the seventh round. He was the last quarterback selected.

Dorsey lasted three seasons with the flailing 49ers. In 2004, starter Tim Rattay’s separated throwing shoulder gave Dorsey an opportunity to flex on his detractors again.

But the 49ers were putrid, and Dorsey’s results were less than pedestrian. They went 2-14 that season. Dorsey won one of his seven starts. He completed 54.4 percent of his throws for 1,231 yards and six TDs with nine interceptions.

San Francisco traded Dorsey and a third-round draft choice to Cleveland for Trent Dilfer in 2006, a move that introduced Dorsey to Anderson and a year later would reunite him with Chudzinski as the Browns’ offensive coordinator.

And if it hadn’t been clear beforehand that Dorsey was headed toward a coaching career, it was becoming obvious in Cleveland.

“He’s such a team guy and good person,” Chudzinski said, “that it didn’t stop him from being a great teammate and helping out the other guys in the room.

“Derek Anderson went to a Pro Bowl in 2007. Kenny helped immensely in him having that breakout year. That’s why I trusted him so much and why he was so valuable.”

Dorsey stayed with Cleveland for three years, starting three games in 2008 after Anderson and Brady Quinn were sidelined. But that was that for Dorsey’s NFL playing career. The Browns went 4-12, replaced head coach Romeo Crennel with Eric Mangini and Chudzinski with Daboll. Dorsey was released.

Bitter from his NFL flameout, Dorsey emigrated to the Toronto Argonauts. He said it was in the CFL that he rediscovered his love for football.

Lemon, a vagabond himself, could tell. After he, Dorsey and CFL veteran Dalton Bell battled through the preseason (former Bills backup Gibran Hamdan also was in camp but retired) and the depth chart was set, Dorsey essentially slid into a quasi-coaching role for Lemon.

“When I would come off the field and had a question during a game,” Lemon said, “he would be the first person I would go to about what he was seeing, not a coach. The way he broke it down and made it so relatable, the way you could apply it on the very next series, he was just tremendous.

“Even though we came into that situation not knowing anything about Canadian football — the rules, the play, the pace — he could anticipate what the defensive adjustments would be. He was always on top of things.”

When asked for his favorite Dorsey story, the first thought that pops into Anderson’s mind makes him laugh out loud.

“This stupid game we made up,” Anderson said, “but it became a thing.”

Fridays after practice, the Browns’ quarterbacks would gaze around the complex and imagine a golf hole. All of it was in their minds. A tackle dummy lying in the end zone might be the pin. Inside the 40-yard line and to the right of the hash marks might be a water hazard, and the dogleg right might start at the 25 before you can approach the green.

Dorsey, Anderson and Quinn could insert directives such as one of the first four strokes must be left-footed.

Oh, yeah. Every shot was a punt.

“So if you shanked one, you got a penalty,” Anderson said. “The winner would pick the next hole. We’d play nine and they could be anywhere from the outside facility to the inside facility. It’s make-believe as we go.”

You’ve heard the saying about somebody being so competitive they hate to lose at checkers?

Dorsey detonated over games that exist between his ears.

“He would get so mad because he lost this stupid punt game, which was for breakfast on Saturday morning,” Anderson said. “Brady and I would just laugh our asses off because he was so competitive at this silly game.

“He’d storm off, yelling that we cheated. Or there were times we’d all walk off the practice field not speaking at all.”

Dorsey doesn’t dispute his temper can get out of hand. He knows his volatility can be unreasonable.

He shrugs anyway.

“I get way too pissed off at golf, which is crazy because I’m not Jack Nicklaus,” Dorsey said. “That’s why I lean more toward basketball. I’d want to join a 40-and-over league in the offseason, play nights. That would be fun.”

Would it?

That probably depends.

He hasn’t yet been invited to play in Bills general manager Brandon Beane’s training camp pickup games in St. John Fisher University’s gym.

“It might be because I start too many fights,” Dorsey said.

We’ve learned by now that Dorsey buries himself in his work and is tightly wound.

He better have developed some relaxation techniques. The One Bills Drive overnight cleaning and security crews probably have heard one of Dorsey’s techniques, whether the third-shifters like it or not.

“I tend to work later in the office,” Dorsey said, “but I will blast music extremely loud.”

His tastes are eclectic. He enjoys Mumford & Sons and often will dial up the Counting Crows station on Pandora’s free stream because, Dorsey said, “I’m too cheap to pay” for a subscription.

Dorsey’s ear expanded during the year spent between Panthers and Bills coaching staffs. He took a job in 2018 alongside Davis, his old Hurricanes coach, as Florida International University’s assistant athletics director.

Dorsey fell in love with Latin music. He doesn’t speak Spanish.

“I have no idea what they’re saying,” Dorsey said, “but it’s fantastic. It is awesome. I drive people crazy probably.”

When it’s finally time to disconnect for the night, his preferred method is to find a movie that’s neither too bad nor too good. “The Hunt for Red October” and “Top Gun” are in the wheelhouse.

“I love falling asleep to movies that are just good enough to fight off the boredom,” Dorsey said, “but you need to have seen them a million times, or they have to be just bad enough to not hold your attention.”

After retiring as a quarterback, Dorsey didn’t dive fully into coaching. He was offensive coordinator for Riverview High in Sarasota, Fla., while also working at the IMG Academy in nearby Bradenton.

He connected with quarterback and IMG client Cam Newton, a relationship that brought Dorsey to the Panthers in 2011 as an advance scout. Chudzinski already was there as offensive coordinator. Anderson was the primary backup.

“There was no surprise that he was going to be a great coach,” Chudzinski said of Dorsey. “He could dissect defenses. He has a good sense for personnel. He always knew what matchups he wanted to exploit and was very creative.”

Dorsey worked closely with Newton, creating reports on the next opponent. When the Browns hired Chudzinski to be their head coach in 2013, Dorsey was promoted to Panthers quarterbacks coach in the shuffle.

Two years later, the Panthers went 15-1. Newton was voted MVP. They lost to the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl, but that Panthers squad launched much of what the Bills are today.

Bills head coach Sean McDermott was the Panthers’ defensive coordinator. Senior offensive assistant Mike Shula was their play caller. Senior defensive assistant Eric Washington was the Panthers’ defensive line coach. Beane was Carolina’s director of football operations.

A multitude of ex-Panthers have filtered through One Bills Drive since McDermott and Beane took over in 2017. Anderson was one of them, brought aboard a year later to aide Allen’s rookie season.

All the crossovers give Anderson an idea of how the Dorsey he played with and the Dorsey he played for will translate as Allen’s handler.

“Ken is aggressive and innovative,” Anderson said. “He’s had so many great ideas, but before it was always somebody else’s show. Mike Shula was our coordinator, for example, and they would butt heads on things.

“But Ken has some unbelievable thoughts. We had all kinds of fun meetings. Some teams don’t have the arm strength or the talent on the field to execute whatever you can imagine.”

Anderson recalled times he would be blown away by plays Dorsey concocted with the Browns but knew they wouldn’t work with their limited personnel.

“Having that confidence and a quarterback like Josh,” Anderson said, “will allow him to play chess.”

Whatever level of concern wrought by Daboll’s departure, Bills fans shouldn’t expect Dorsey to ruin one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses.

The same guy who, as a teenager, earned deference from a roster full of superduperstars by putting in the work, by keeping his head, by tethering all corners of a diverse locker room, by executing his vision on Saturdays is so far demonstrating similar strengths as an NFL assistant.

Nothing ho-hum about that.

“You just got to be you,” Dorsey said. “I couldn’t pretend to be Bernie Kosar or Steve Walsh. I had to be me and lead in my own way. If you’re fake about it or pretending to be someone else, guys see through that. Brian Daboll did a great job, but I can’t be him.”

(Top photo: Rich Barnes / USA Today)