Dan Orlovsky has earned a reputation for being the staunchest of quarterback defenders in sports media.
When he’s not being accused of being an Aaron Rodgers apologist, he’s being accused of flip-flopping his takes on Sam Darnold. Tuesday saw Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe come after Orlovsky on First Take because he argued that the recently embattled Vikings quarterback was far down the list of reasons Minnesota lost in the Wild Card Round.
Orlovsky’s defense of quarterbacks is nothing new.
Just a few weeks ago, he labeled Sam Darnold a “really, really elite” quarterback — provided Darnold is “proactive with his eyes.” Smith seized on this during Tuesday’s First Take, pointing out Darnold’s struggles in a 27-9 loss to the Rams, where he was sacked nine times. Conveniently, Smith glossed over his own past missteps when discussing the 27-year-old quarterback, but that didn’t stop him from piling on.
The Orlovsky criticism didn’t stop with ESPN.
Over on FS1, First Things First host Nick Wright took a thinly veiled swipe at “certain media members” who overinflate quarterbacks’ abilities.
While Wright didn’t name names, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.
This isn’t the first time Orlovsky and Wright have sparred over quarterbacks, and it likely won’t be the last. Still, Orlovsky seemed unaware of Wright’s comments when someone on X (formerly Twitter) suggested that Wright discredited his opinions by pointing out Orlovsky “didn’t play quarterback as well as Sam Darnold.”
I’m confused
— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) January 15, 2025
Wright agreed with his colleague, Kevin Wildes, that Darnold had turned into “pumpkin mode” in back-to-back games. And he wasn’t the only one piling on Darnold, but he was seemingly the only one taking potshots at other media members.
“So, it was the first 16 games of the year and then the biggest game of his career and then the next biggest game of his career, which was actually bigger than the previous,” Wright began. “All of a sudden, [he’s] seeing ghosts again. And, I understand that it’s very in vogue for certain media members, particularly maybe media members that played quarterback, not as well as Sam Darnold, to be like, ‘It’s not the quarterback’s fault.’ ‘It is a long list of people whose fault it is before.’
“The biggest culprit last night was Sam Darnold.”
“Now, did the offensive line do him any favors? No. But were all of those sacks on the offensive line? Absolutely not,” Wright continued. “And Greg Rosenthal — I listen to his great NFL Daily podcast — had this stat; I couldn’t believe it. It’s the most yards lost to sacks in playoff history — 82 yards. The most yards lost to sacks in any game, playoff or regular season, in the last decade.”
Based on context clues and other comments from the show in recent past, just drew this as a cheap shot. pic.twitter.com/z6XVvNzNZl
— Jordan Stock (@Jo_Stock15) January 15, 2025
Using context clues, Wright almost certainly had to be referring to Orlovsky, who defended Darnold on First Take and argued that he was fourth or fifth on the list of reasons why Minnesota lost. While Orlovsky acknowledged that Darnold didn’t play well, he refused to pin the blame solely on the quarterback.
That said, Darnold isn’t blameless. He let his eyes drift, failed to stay proactive with his reads — contrary to Orlovsky’s earlier praise — and held onto the ball far too long, contributing to his nine sacks.
Which is what Wright was getting at, even if he seemingly took a shot at a fellow media member in the process.
Orlovsky hasn’t yet publicly responded to Wright — and perhaps he won’t. But he will stay committed to defending quarterbacks — flaws and all. And Wright will stay committed to critiquing any media members who dare to let quarterbacks like Darnold off the hook.
