Buffalo Bills Find Scapegoat, Fire Coordinator Amid Disastrous Stretch

After Monday night's loss to the Denver Broncos, fans of the Buffalo Bills demanded answers from the team for their poor performance.

On Tuesday morning, they received one. That said, the outlook in Orchard Park still seems pretty bleak heading into a tough stretch of games.

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Buffalo Bills Fire OC Ken Dorsey, Search for Answers Amid Tailspin

A story from ESPN and other outlets shared the news that the Buffalo Bills had relieved Ken Dorsey, the team's offensive coordinator, of his duties as of Tuesday morning. The team's quarterbacks coach, former Carolina Panthers' offensive coordinator Joe Brady, was named as Dorsey's replacement on an interim basis.

The team went 18-8 in the year-plus that Dorsey served as the OC. He was named the team's offensive coordinator after Brian Daboll left to take the New York Giants' head coaching position ahead of the 2022 season.

There are a few ways to look at this move by the Buffalo Bills.

Though the team did not advance past the Divisional Round last season, Dorsey's offense scored the second-most points in the NFL. There were certainly questions from fans and analysts about the team's consistency on offense, but the statistics spoke for themselves, and the team retained Dorsey for the 2023 season.

Those same questions about consistency only got louder this season. The team has regressed from a point-scoring standpoint (8th in the league in scoring), and at many times, the play-calling seemed to stall, or get stale, during the middle of a given game.

Couple all of that with the team's incessant turnovers, and apparently, Dorsey was the person who needed to be let go.

Let me say this, however: if Sean McDermott wasn't looking over his shoulder before this firing, he certainly should be now.

The game against the Broncos was lost during the final minute of regulation because A) McDermott, who is calling plays on defense, called a blitz that allowed Denver to move into field goal range, and B) the Bills had 12 players on the field when Denver missed their first attempt at the game-winning field goal.

Both of those mistakes were orchestrated and overseen by McDermott, not Dorsey.

Two things can be true in this instance. Sean McDermott is a good football coach, and has proven that time and again in Buffalo. There's an argument to be made, however, that the Bills have missed their window to win a championship with McDermott at the helm.

To make a long story short, this may not be the last staffer that's let go in Buffalo by the time a Super Bowl champion is crowned in February of 2024.

Stay tuned.