The Buffalo Bills announced Tuesday that they are promoting Ken Dorsey to offensive coordinator as the in-house replacement for Brian Daboll.

When Daboll accepted the New York Giants’ head coaching position, there was speculation that Dorsey might follow him to the Meadowlands to be his coordinator.

And when it was revealed during Daboll’s introductory press conference in New York Monday that ownership preferred that he hired a coordinator who would call the plays, Dorsey going to Big Blue certainly seemed possible.

But the Bills acted quickly to keep Dorsey in place, a move that Josh Allen surely approves of because as the quarterback coach in Buffalo, Dorsey has played a significant role in raising Allen’s game.

“I think when he got here three years ago, my career definitely changed in terms of how I viewed the game of football,” Allen said last week. “Just having a guy in the quarterback room that played the game, was the winningest college quarterback of all time - 38-2, he’ll never let me forget that, he says it all the time - but just the way he approaches the game. He’s competitive, he’s smart, he works his ass off. I appreciate what he’s done for me over the course of my career so far.”

The Bills reportedly interviewed Tee Martin and Edgar Bennett for the job. Martin was the Baltimore Ravens wide receiver coach in 2021 after filling that role for two years with the Tennessee Titans and has never been a coordinator.

Bennett was Green Bay’s offensive coordinator from 2015-17 and had been the Las Vegas Raiders receivers’ coach since then.

Dorsey has never been a coordinator at any level. After the magnificent college career Allen referenced at the University of Miami, which included leading Miami to the national championship in 2001, Dorsey was a seventh-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers in the 2003 NFL Draft.

However, he never made much of a dent as a player. He was with the 49ers in 2004 and 2005, then spent three years with the Cleveland Browns, retiring after the 2008 season.

He played in just 17 NFL games with 13 starts, and completed 52.5% of his passes for 2,082 yards with eight TDs and 18 interceptions.

After a year off, Dorsey went north to play for Toronto in the Canadian Football League but that lasted just one year and he retired for good.

In 2013 he became the Carolina Panthers quarterback coach on Ron Rivera’s staff that also included Sean McDermott as the defensive coordinator. Dorsey played a role in Cam Newton’s 2015 MVP season and the Panthers won an NFC championship before losing to the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 50.

Dorsey took 2018 off, then joined the Bills in 2019 to work under Daboll, and Allen made strides from his rookie season, then exploded to stardom in 2020 when he was MVP runner-up.

It was clearly imperative to McDermott to keep Dorsey in Buffalo and working with Allen given the relationship they have developed. With Dorsey in place, it would seem that much of Daboll’s offense and perhaps some of the verbiage can remain the same.

To date, Daboll has taken only one Bills coach to New York with him as offensive line coach Bobby Johnson - who also joined the Bills in 2019 - was hired by the Giants to fill the same role. His contract with Buffalo expired which is why he was able to make the lateral move.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Ken Dorsey named new Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator