Ken Dorsey, fired by Bills, looks ahead to fresh start as Browns offensive coordinator

BEREA — Ken Dorsey didn't want to talk about unhappy endings Monday. The new Browns offensive coordinator swatted away a question about being fired from the same position with the Buffalo Bills midway through last season.

That doesn't mean Dorsey hasn't arrived back in Cleveland — where he spent three seasons, from 2006-08, as the No. 3 quarterback — with a healthy amount of retrospection.

"Well, I think one of the big things was that it gave me time to kind of go back and look at, 'OK, here's what we were doing schematically and how we’re utilizing our personnel,' and really evaluate what we were doing," Dorsey said during Monday's news conference. "And when I did, I felt like there was a lot of great things that we were doing. And yeah, there's always things that, hey, maybe I'd do this a little bit differently, kind of moving forward.

"But, again, when you make those decisions, every opportunity is very unique as well, too. So, hey, no matter what, when I’m coming here, you're going to evolve and do some things differently because your personnel and the system and the different things are also changing."

Dorsey was only the Bills' offensive coordinator for a year and a half before being fired after a Week 10 loss to the Denver Broncos last November. Over that time, Buffalo's offense ranked in the top 10 in several key categories, even as it struggled to top 25 points over a 2-4 stretch that proved to be Dorsey's downfall.

Statistics aren't the way Dorsey has tried to frame the way he's self-assessed himself.

"But I think you look back and you say, 'OK, were we on the right track?'" Dorsey said. "Were we doing the things that I felt like at the end of the day as a leader of the offense and the play-caller was giving us the best chance to win. In a lot of cases there was a lot of yesses, and sometimes it was in certain situations maybe I would do something a little different here."

Which brings Dorsey to his newest challenge. In some ways, it's maybe the most unique in his coaching career, which started as Carolina Panthers quarterbacks coach in 2013.

Dorsey comes to a Browns team trying to maximize a quarterback asset in Deshaun Watson, who's proven himself before to be a Pro Bowl-caliber player, but it has been since 2020 he was at that level. Not only that, he's barely been on the field in that time due to sitting out one season, being suspended 11 games in 2022 and missing all or most of 12 games last season.

It's more than that, though. It's also walking into his first coaching job where he will be working with an offensive-minded head coach in Kevin Stefanski, who has also been the play caller the previous four seasons in Cleveland.

"I think when you go back and watch some of the previous (Browns) film, especially as the season went on, I think that there's definitely going to be some things that we will do, but then there's going to be definitely some things that, yes, we would be doing differently," Dorsey said. "And obviously that's the exciting part with working with Kevin is a lot of that communication between him and I.

"Just in the short span of time, I think there's a lot of philosophical things that we will see eye to eye on, and then there's going to be some things that we're going to hash out and we're going to say, 'Hey, this is what I think,' and then Kevin will say, 'This is what I think,' and we'll end up going in whatever direction we feel like is best suited for us as an offense. At the end of the day, obviously Kevin's the head coach, and if that's the decision he makes then we're full bore that direction."

Dorsey insists that's not just going to be a two-person conversation. He was part of a significant offensive staff overhaul, which is not technically finished as the Browns continue to search for a new offensive line coach to replace Bill Callahan, who left to join his son, Brian, the new coach of the Tennessee Titans.

Even with all of the new parts to the offensive staff, Dorsey said he doesn't believe it needs to be an full-scale overhaul. However, he also said what it finally looks like isn't something to be gleaned in February.

"That's what makes ball fun, is to come in and really roll up your sleeves and say, 'OK, where do we want to go?'" Dorsey said. "Then in the course of the year, you're still learning yourself in training camp and throughout the offseason program and into training camp, and really the first couple of weeks of the season. That's when things start defining kind of who you are from an identity standpoint, because when you look at free agency, draft and all those things, it takes time to work all those pieces.

"Are we going to be an 11 team, a 12 team, a 21 team? You can't say that right now because we don't have the roster. And that's the fun part about the NFL is you got time to figure that out, and there's going to be a process that we go through to do so."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: What Browns' new offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey bring to the team