Cleveland offense- Dorsey

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

I'm interested to see what type of career Dorsey has. I don't think he was a very good OC for the Bills, but I think he is over-hated by most fans here. 

 

He was handcuffed in 2 different ways by McBeane

 

1) The mandate for Josh Allen to not run as much

2) Complementary football (IE the #1 priority was clock control instead of scoring)

 

I don't think the offense looked very different under Brady (and the stats bear that out). The Brady offense against Chiefs, Chargers, Patriots, and Dolphins were every bit as inconsistent as the Dorsey offense looked during our 6 game mid-season swoon.

 

The 5 game win streak to end the regular season had more to do with the DEF, and some luck, then it did the offense.

 

Thankfully the DEF forced 15 turnovers in Brady's 7 games (compared to 4 turnovers in Dorsey's final 6 games). That gave our OFF so many more possessions and took some pressure off as well. 

 

Luckily we eeked out some wins due to Toney lining up offside, playing the Chargers with a backup QB and interim coach, Patriots with 4 turnovers in 10 plays, and we had a punt return for TD against the Dolphins. The offense was fairly bad in all 4 of those games. 

 

 

 

[Lfod]

Dorsey was fired because he couldn't ask the man who is doing his job now for ideas before he was fired.

 

Next thing you know, whoop next guys got something cooking. Dorsey might be alright, but now this time ask around for feedback when he  struggles.

 

 

Edited August 9 by Lfod

[Avisan]

20 minutes ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

I'm interested to see what type of career Dorsey has. I don't think he was a very good OC for the Bills, but I think he is over-hated by most fans here. 

 

He was handcuffed in 2 different ways by McBeane

 

1) The mandate for Josh Allen to not run as much

2) Complementary football (IE the #1 priority was clock control instead of scoring)

 

I don't think the offense looked very different under Brady (and the stats bear that out). The Brady offense against Chiefs, Chargers, Patriots, and Dolphins were every bit as inconsistent as the Dorsey offense looked during our 6 game mid-season swoon.

 

The 5 game win streak to end the regular season had more to do with the DEF, and some luck, then it did the offense.

 

Thankfully the DEF forced 15 turnovers in Brady's 7 games (compared to 4 turnovers in Dorsey's final 6 games). That gave our OFF so many more possessions and took some pressure off as well. 

 

Luckily we eeked out some wins due to Toney lining up offside, playing the Chargers with a backup QB and interim coach, Patriots with 4 turnovers in 10 plays, and we had a punt return for TD against the Dolphins. The offense was fairly bad in all 4 of those games. 

 

 

 

The stats do NOT bear that out.  The Bills scored far more points and ran nearly 10 additional plays per game as an offense versus the slide period.  They were a much more consistent team, offensively, under Brady.

[balln]

12 minutes ago, Avisan said:

The stats do NOT bear that out.  The Bills scored far more points and ran nearly 10 additional plays per game as an offense versus the slide period.  They were a much more consistent team, offensively, under Brady.

What was strength of schedule / opponent in those games 

[4merper4mer]

46 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

What? I haven’t made one claim of what is going on behind the scenes, so what are you even talking about?  

You said “what Dorsey was doing wasn’t working here” or similar.  That statement puts it all on Dorsey implying he had free reign to run everything he wanted.  But you don’t know whether that is true or not. 

[Fan in Chicago]

I have speculated before and still think that Dorsey's personality was a problem and did not gel with Allen's. Look at how stressed and unhappy Allen looked with Dorsey as an OC. Much has been said about the team in general and Allen in particular looking more relaxed and focused this year than in the past 2. We can attribute it to Diggs being gone and I certainly think that was a factor in the general stress the team was displaying. But imo, it was Diggs and Dorsey who were issues with the team chemistry. 

Someone who has knowledge from inside the building can corroborate or refute my point of view. But I will be looking at that with the Browns and the Texans this season. 

The offense players looked and felt palpably different once Dorsey was gone. 

[JohnNord]

2 hours ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

That is what I kept saying.

 

The other thing I said every week was.............Bills are playing this D.  They struggle with these things.  Dorsey needs to exploit that.

He never did.  He kept to his gameplan and didn't adapt.

IMO.

His offense started out fast but that went into a slump.  I thought that he always lacked the counterpunch that Brian Daboll would eventually find in 2020 and 2021

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

1 hour ago, Avisan said:

The stats do NOT bear that out.  The Bills scored far more points and ran nearly 10 additional plays per game as an offense versus the slide period.  They were a much more consistent team, offensively, under Brady.

 

Why would we only look at the 6 week slide period and ignore the 3 best offensive performances under Dorsey? Do weeks 2-4 not count? If you're arbitrarily excluding data from your stats to make an argument, its not much of an argument

 

Complete regular season stats:

26.2 average PPG with Dorsey. 23.0 median

27.0 average PPG with Brady. 21.0 median

 

 

 

 

[nedboy7]

“What I love about Joe is he really wants to call plays that we want to run,” Allen said. “He comes into our meeting the day before the game and he goes ‘I’m leaving. You guys figure out the first three runs you want as an offensive line. Khalil Shakir, I want your favorite pass to get you going. Josh Allen, I want a quick game, I want a deep answer.’ So, he goes in and he gives us the opportunity to call what we wanna call.”

 

For his part, Brady’s been adapting positionless football into some of his offensive playcalling and taking an ‘everyone eats’ approach to spread the ball around and make it tough for opposing defenses to plan for Buffalo. Especially when they don’t know who the ball is going to.

“We don’t have positions,” Brady said to the press recently. “The way that we taught the offense, we just taught everything conceptually. These are three-man concepts, these are two-man concepts, these are full-field progressions, and so if I ask a guy, ‘Hey, what do you have on this play?’ They should be asking me, ‘Well, what’s the formation? What position am I playing on that play?’

He’s also leveraging the players on his offensive roster’s versatility in teaching them to play different parts of formations to open up the possibilities on the field.

“Not, like, ‘Hey, I’m the X, so I have this.’ It really forces the guys to understand at any given moment, you can be on any of these spots and you’ve got to know it. Formationally we can change it, move it around. That was a big point of emphasis; I don’t want the guys memorizing a play and what they have that specific route, they have to know it all.”

[Cash]

2 hours ago, Buffalo Junction said:

So, for clarification….
 

When we’re referring to McD’s usage of “complementary football” are we just assuming that he tells all his OCs to run the football 40 times a game so the defense doesn’t get tired? 
 

I honestly can’t believe that McD would be that much of a dolt. I assume that when he uses that term it’s in reference to in game situations such as this team is down 3-4 starters in the front 7 (6 with this team), so the offense needs to keep the chains moving and get up by two scores so the opposition can’t just run the ball all game. 
 

The latter might make sense to me if we currently had Marshawn and FredX or even prime Shady, but that’s not the case. 

 

I agree with this. Upthread @GunnerBill posted the drive lengths from the JAX game last year. I think about half the drives were 4 plays or less, and maybe 1 drive more than 6 plays. That’s not going to get it done UNLESS you’re scoring TDs on those 3-4 play drives. (Spoiler: we weren’t.)

 

I don’t know if Brady will be good as our OC. I hope so, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I also don’t know if the doomsdayers are right and McDermott is the problem. I hope not and I don’t think so, but I can’t prove them wrong at this time. I also don’t know if Dorsey will succeed in his future NFL career. (I think it depends on how much he learns from his first go-round.) But I DO know that, despite having a transcendent talent at QB, things were seriously off with the offense last year, and some (but not all) of that wrongness went away when the OC was fired. I think it’s wrong to pin 100% of the problems on Dorsey. But Dorsey was absolutely part of the problem, and if you disagree, I really don’t know what to tell you.

 

Again, the first time the CB covering the flat peels off and intercepts a ball intended for Davis on a deep out, maybe that’s a good play by the D or a bad route by one of our players. The third or fourth time, it is a fundamental problem with the offense and the blame lies squarely with the OC. 

[Avisan]

42 minutes ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

 

Why would we only look at the 6 week slide period and ignore the 3 best offensive performances under Dorsey? Do weeks 2-4 not count? If you're arbitrarily excluding data from your stats to make an argument, its not much of an argument

 

Complete regular season stats:

26.2 average PPG with Dorsey. 23.0 median

27.0 average PPG with Brady. 21.0 median

 

 

 

 

Because the poster referenced it directly?

 

The Bills offensive executed about 9 more plays per game under Brady than under Dorsey with no drop in passing YPA.  They were much more consistent. 

[Avisan]

55 minutes ago, DabillsDaBillsDaBills said:

Complete regular season stats:

26.2 average PPG with Dorsey. 23.0 median

27.0 average PPG with Brady. 21.0 median

 

 

 

 

Also, median points under Brady was 27 FYI.  Your numbers are off.

[Alphadawg7]

2 hours ago, 4merper4mer said:

You said “what Dorsey was doing wasn’t working here” or similar.  That statement puts it all on Dorsey implying he had free reign to run everything he wanted.  But you don’t know whether that is true or not. 

 

Come on bro...you are the one who came up with some far fetched theory that it was McD interfering with Dorsey as an excuse for Dorsey despite there being zero evidence of such a thing outside your personal theory.  

 

I have said Dorsey wasn't working here because...

1. He got fired.  So clearly the Bills felt the same.
2. People who actually know real NFL football like Dan Orlosky, Kurt Warner, etc covered extensively what wasn't working with Dorsey and his system.
3. Bills were 5-5 and the offense was in a 6 game skid.
4. In the 5 losses and 2 other games we should have lost if not for Giants and Bucs blowing the final game winning play we averaged 19.6 PPG and were 2-5 to opponents whose win % was .436.
5. Brady came in and the offense scored 32 in his first game against the Jets, the team Dorsey led offense was 1-2 against in 3 games with a 17 ppg average. 
6. Brady led offense averaged 27 PPG which is more than a full TD better than Dorseys offense had been doing during the 6 game skid that got him fired.
7. Not only were we 6-1 compared to 2-5, but the win % was well above .500 of our opponents, and they included the SB champs, 3 playoff teams, and 2 teams Dorsey lost to.  

I don't need inside information to reach a conclusion that Dorsey wasn't working here.  It is clear as day from the data, facts, and known information that a change was needed because it was not working.  So yes, I do know that it is true Dorsey wasn't working out here because things worked out better when he was gone.  

 

I wish him well...hope he keeps improving and goes on to have a good career.  He was not working out here though.

Edited August 9 by Alphadawg7

[Avisan]

2 hours ago, balln said:

What was strength of schedule / opponent in those games 

Our opponent W-L under Dorsey was .441 (avg 7.5 wins on the season).  Under Brady it was .513 (avg 8.7 wins on the season).

[NewEra]

3 hours ago, 4merper4mer said:

You said “what Dorsey was doing wasn’t working here” or similar.  That statement puts it all on Dorsey implying he had free rein to run everything he wanted.  But you don’t know whether that is true or not. 

No, that statement says “what Dorsey was doing wasn’t working here”.  Those aren’t the same thing.  Whether or not there was outside influence, what he was doing wasn’t working here. 

[Ayjent]

4 hours ago, Avisan said:

Our opponent W-L under Dorsey was .441 (avg 7.5 wins on the season).  Under Brady it was .513 (avg 8.7 wins on the season).

5-5 vs. 6-1.  Brady may not be the long-term answer either, but he was the answer to a lot of questions last year.  The team responded to that change and I’m not sure why this is such a hotly debated topic.  Dorsey had some nice games early in each season, and there was a lot of reason for optimism.  However, it’s hard to debate that he effectively adapted the offense in-season to how defenses started to play the Bills.  Each year after a good start the offense got a bit stale and less effective with the exception of some really bad opponents in 2022.  You look at the scores in 2022 and say hmm they looked pretty good, but I remember not feeling great about the team’s performance going into the playoffs and thinking they were off in 2022. The game plan against the Bengals on both sides was awful in the playoffs, but for the offense and Allen that is an outlier. Maybe it was everything during the season coming to a head emotionally; however, if you really look at it objectively, it was just an extension of what had already been exposed earlier in the season.  The Bengals were better coached and knew exactly how to win on both sides. They were doing the same thing to the Bills in the game before the Damar incident.  Dorsey was exposed in the playoffs, and I think his ineffectiveness created some frustration and rifts amongst the players. In 2023 they struggled to even find answers against bad teams with Dorsey.  There is a reason the team responded to Dorsey being let go, and it’s not because they didn’t like him, but because his offense required higher levels of execution as teams caught on.   Brady’s playcalling provided some relief.

[BananaB]

Stefani gonna have a lot of say in what Dorsey calls

[GunnerBill]

6 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Come on bro...you are the one who came up with some far fetched theory that it was McD interfering with Dorsey as an excuse for Dorsey despite there being zero evidence of such a thing outside your personal theory.  

 

I have said Dorsey wasn't working here because...

1. He got fired.  So clearly the Bills felt the same.
2. People who actually know real NFL football like Dan Orlosky, Kurt Warner, etc covered extensively what wasn't working with Dorsey and his system.
3. Bills were 5-5 and the offense was in a 6 game skid.
4. In the 5 losses and 2 other games we should have lost if not for Giants and Bucs blowing the final game winning play we averaged 19.6 PPG and were 2-5 to opponents whose win % was .436.
5. Brady came in and the offense scored 32 in his first game against the Jets, the team Dorsey led offense was 1-2 against in 3 games with a 17 ppg average. 
6. Brady led offense averaged 27 PPG which is more than a full TD better than Dorseys offense had been doing during the 6 game skid that got him fired.
7. Not only were we 6-1 compared to 2-5, but the win % was well above .500 of our opponents, and they included the SB champs, 3 playoff teams, and 2 teams Dorsey lost to.  

I don't need inside information to reach a conclusion that Dorsey wasn't working here.  It is clear as day from the data, facts, and known information that a change was needed because it was not working.  So yes, I do know that it is true Dorsey wasn't working out here because things worked out better when he was gone.  

 

I wish him well...hope he keeps improving and goes on to have a good career.  He was not working out here though.

 

Can I just add to this that neither you or I in the various arguments we have made in this thread have sought to argue that Ken Dorsey was, throughout his time here, a bad offensive coordinator. So the numbers that look at his season and a half as a whole are not the argument. The argument is purely about that "skid" as you refer to it and the fact he really did not seem to have any answers. Was that lack of willingness to adjust or could he just not see alternative solutions? 

 

The alternative argument, which is legitimate is "well his work in 2022 and some of the early games of 2023 he deserved more time to find a fix." I think you can legitimately take that view and then we just get to a pure difference of opinion on how likely he was to be able to turn it around. And I go back to where I started. He reminds me a lot of the persona I observed of coaches I have come across in my life as a player and coach and guys I've observed as a fan - across multiple sports. The best coaches are the best coaches because they are able to cope with and coach through adversity. Dorsey felt more like a when it's good keep it rolling guy and when the adversity hit he didn't seem to have a response. 

 

12 minutes ago, BananaB said:

Stefani gonna have a lot of say in what Dorsey calls

 

Stefanski is calling the plays. 

Edited August 9 by GunnerBill

[BillsFan130]

7 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Come on bro...you are the one who came up with some far fetched theory that it was McD interfering with Dorsey as an excuse for Dorsey despite there being zero evidence of such a thing outside your personal theory.  

 

I have said Dorsey wasn't working here because...

1. He got fired.  So clearly the Bills felt the same.
2. People who actually know real NFL football like Dan Orlosky, Kurt Warner, etc covered extensively what wasn't working with Dorsey and his system.
3. Bills were 5-5 and the offense was in a 6 game skid.
4. In the 5 losses and 2 other games we should have lost if not for Giants and Bucs blowing the final game winning play we averaged 19.6 PPG and were 2-5 to opponents whose win % was .436.
5. Brady came in and the offense scored 32 in his first game against the Jets, the team Dorsey led offense was 1-2 against in 3 games with a 17 ppg average. 
6. Brady led offense averaged 27 PPG which is more than a full TD better than Dorseys offense had been doing during the 6 game skid that got him fired.
7. Not only were we 6-1 compared to 2-5, but the win % was well above .500 of our opponents, and they included the SB champs, 3 playoff teams, and 2 teams Dorsey lost to.  

I don't need inside information to reach a conclusion that Dorsey wasn't working here.  It is clear as day from the data, facts, and known information that a change was needed because it was not working.  So yes, I do know that it is true Dorsey wasn't working out here because things worked out better when he was gone.  

 

I wish him well...hope he keeps improving and goes on to have a good career.  He was not working out here though.

Good post.

 

i think another underrated thing was the turnovers.

 

I don't have the numbers so maybe im wrong, but it seemed like the bills were turning the ball over at a historical rate with Dorsey last year.

 

Where Brady seemed to clean a lot of that up 

[JP51]

16 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

The Jags loss though we did score a TD when the game was done. 

 

In Cleveland it isn't his offense and he isn't calling plays. Not the place to judge him IMO.

Straight up did not know that... I appreciate the info... weird that he would get into a situation where Stefanik was going to call the plays... but I guess he was looking for an OC job.