There was a bit of a paradigm shift this week when the Indianapolis Colts announced that they were hiring ESPN NFL analyst Jeff Saturday to become their interim head coach for the rest of the season. All of a sudden, it seemed like the revolving door between media members and coaches was in motion, and it was possible someone else might walk through.
Saturday’s now-former colleague Dan Orlovsky pondered the possibility of joining Saturday’s coaching staff during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show Tuesday morning.
“Did Jeff Saturday offer you a job to be the quarterbacks’ coach with the Colts?” Patrick asked.
“Not directly, no,” Orlovsky said. “I texted with him yesterday. ‘Hey man, good luck go crush it’ type of thing. We decided to touch base later. So no, he didn’t directly offer me anything.”
“I won’t lobby,” Orlovsky later told Patrick. “I’ve made myself pretty clear to Jeff. I want to coach one day. I’m very much so interested in it. Candidly, as the days go on and on I get more and more interested in it. You miss that part of football. I love what I get to do at ESPN right now. I love working for a guy like Jimmy Pitaro. I love working with the people I get to work with on a daily basis. I have a lot of friends who coach in the league, we talk all the time, they know where I stand.”
While many of Orlovsky’s colleagues were more than happy to criticize the Colts and Saturday over the situation, he’s stayed relatively Switzerland-like, perhaps waiting to see if he gets a call.
However, during an appearance on WEEI’s Merloni, Fauria, & Mego, Orlovsky, who played one season for the Colts, clarified that while he is interested in becoming a coach at some point in the future, that’s not going to happen during the 2022 NFL season.
“Not gonna happen this year,” Orlovsky said. “Joining at a later date is absolutely an option. I’m not trying to blow smoke or anything. I’ve been outspoken about this. I’ve talked with Jeff a lot about football, a lot about coaching, my philosophy on it, and where it stands in my life. That’s a very real thing. I’ve always said I want to coach. I feel like I coach on television, in a way. I feel like I’m coaching those watching the shows and I try to keep my mind into that world. The further you get away from playing — at least in my case — the greater the draw to get pulled back in.”
So there you go. Orlovsky and his atrocious food opinions aren’t going anywhere just yet.
[Merloni, Fauria, & Mego, via Barrett Sports Media]
