The Press Box - ESPN's Dan Orlovsky on Calling Games, Watching Tape, and Being a Sports Dad

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Bryan is joined by ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky to talk about his career—from playing 12 seasons in the NFL to tweeting about games, to appearing weekly on 'Get Up,' 'SportsCenter,' 'First Take' and other ESPN television and radio shows. They discuss Orlovsky's transition from quarterback to analyst, his approach to breaking down plays for viewers, as well as his opinion on youth sports as a father of four. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Dan Orlovsky Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. Brian Curtis of the ringer here along with producer Devin Manzi,

week one of the NFL season is over, which means that week one of the NFL take cycle is just beginning. And our guest today has one or two opinions about pro football. He is Dan Orlovsky of ESPN. Dan Orlovsky spent 12 seasons as an NFL quarterback. He now has that many jobs at ESPN, ranging from his afternoon gig on NFL Live, to his showdowns opposite Stephen A. Smith on first take,

this week, he's got a new gig, announcing the network's second Monday night football game, Bill's Titans, with Steve Levy and Lewis Riddick. So what interests me about Orlovsky is the whole business of being an NFL pundit. How he did it on Twitter when he was first starting out, how he does it on ESPN studio shows, and now how he does it in an NFL booth.

What does it take to make your opinion breakthrough? true. Here's Dan Orlovsky. All right, Dan, I have to start with your appearance on first take on Monday. Because you were wearing a t-shirt that said, acknowledge your daddy for the uninitiated. Can you explain? Well, that's head of the table, Roman Raines. So, you know, I was a relatively big wrestling fan as a kid. I grew up in a pretty good era when it was, you know, Hulk Hogan,

and then he went to NWO. So that was like a throwback to my childhood. my boys, I have triplets sons that are 10 that are kind of getting into wrestling as well. We went to Monday Night Raw probably like three months ago and they fell in love with that. And then Roman Raines was there. And so they were like, you know, enthralled with him and the entrance and the crew that he kind of walks with. I got a good buddy of mine, Dave Phelps, who is a huge, huge diehard wrestling fan. And he had kind of got me that shirt.

He was like, you got to see these new Roman. rain shirts that just came out, I don't know, maybe six weeks ago. And so I was like, yo, get me one. It's a large. And so he sent it to me. And I was like, first day of the season, first take, because I had such fun with Stephen A last year and him kind of being like, you're outrageous. I wanted to like kind of wear it to send a little bit of a message, you know, just like, hey, this is going to be my mindset when I come on your show, which I'm so thankful to be a part of. And I know, like, one of the things for me, Brian, when I do TV is I try to be very, very, conscious of I want people at home to understand I'm very much so them you know like I you know

while I come across is super nerdy on television with football and and kind of like outrageous sometimes I think there's an endearing aspect when people can watch someone on television like oh they're into the same stuff that I am and so you know it's kind of a little bit of tied to wrestling and a little bit of tied to TV I'm not just X's and O's I'm like you to Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like wrestling in Roman reigns as well, guys. You've been an NFL opinion guy on basically every ESPN show. What's different about going on first take?

Number one, you cannot be afraid, be afraid to be wrong. You know, that is not the point of that show or Stephen A's show. Stephen A wants someone to go on there, be prepared, be educated about the things you're going to say, and don't worry about being wrong. side, choose aside and be convicted about it. There's an entertainment level of that show that is paramount. And so he also gives you the freedom to be yourself. You know, one of the most amazing things that I experienced last year. So Stephen A called me and said, hey, I want you to come on Thursdays. So that one is incredible. You know, Stephen A. Smith is asking, he gets five days a week.

He's giving you one. That's a big stinking deal. So and then very quickly, it became apparent that he wanted me to be my total true self, go at him, be unapologetic. There was nothing that was out of bounds or off lines with him. And so that was super empowering for me really quickly last year. And it gave me a lot of conviction, you know, when I was going to say some stuff. I don't believe in this business you should say anything or say something. I really believe you got to say what you're convicted about. But first take it's so good if you can embrace the reality that it gives you the power to not fear being wrong because you're going to be asked nine things in one show.

You are going to be wrong in those. But if you're convicted about it, it forces you to really do a good job of preparation. It forces you to find out a lot of different things and see which one of those things you feel supports your thoughts. Speaking of picking aside, last week we kicked off the NFL season with a Rams Bills game and also a Twitter shoving match between you and Richard Sherman, former quarterback who's now at Amazon. He said when you talk about your former teammate Matt Stavard that you are a quote-unquote Homer, what did you make of that?

I don't disagree with that. But I've also been a person who's told the truth about Matthew for a decade now. it happened to be perfect last year where a lot of people were doubting what he was capable of. And I obviously stood on one side of offense. I've said this, though, I'd rather be wrong about Matthew than turn my back on him. That's just the type of person I am. That's the type of relationship I had. I can still be objective about his performances.

I said last year a couple times, like Matthew didn't play great. But everyone, you know, when I got into this world, it was a focus point of, I wanted people to realize there's other great. quarterbacks than Tom Brady and there's other great coaches than Bill Belichick. And we live in the sports entertainment world of sports. Hey, that quarterback was 21 of 30 for 290 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. He stunk. Well, two of the interceptions were one, a Hail Mary with eight seconds to go in the first half

and one went on the hands of receivers. So, you know, which one is the truth? You know, the reality was when Shirm said that stuff, I kind of embrace. it because while he has his perspective and opinion and viewpoint on things, I have mine. And I'm never going to be afraid that even though Richard Sherman was 57 time all pro and he's probably going to be in the Hall of Fame, I'm not going to back down from the things that I believe as well. And, you know, I can be respectful and whatnot.

But just because I don't agree with him doesn't mean that I, my glasses are. covered by oh, Matthew Stafford's my buddy. You retired from the NFL back in 2017. When did you first think about being a broadcaster? It's funny. My wife found a notebook of mine from when I was maybe 10 years old. And I don't know how she found this or where, where I said, I wrote down, I wanted to be a broadcast for ESPN.

Now, that was never a thought of mine in high school. I was going to the NFL. In college, I was going in the NFL. And then when I was in the NFL, I was in the NFL. I was so much focused on that. I did broadcast boot camp, I want to say, in 2014, because I was in a year, I think, nine at that point. I'm going to do something next after this football journey is done.

And then I went back and I believe the spring of 17, maybe the spring, 17 or 18. So once football was done and I knew that it was done, I transitioned to saying what I was going to do next when I got finally cut by the Rams and basically the NFL retired me. I got calls from coaches saying, we want you to come coach. And I entertained those for a couple days, a week or two, and coaches that I loved and respected, but I didn't want to jump into that world because I know what it's like. I had younger kids.

And I was just, I played football since the age of nine until 34 and 35. I wanted a break from that a little bit. So, and then it was, you know, one night, I believe it was a Sunday night or a Monday night football game. And the dolphins were playing the Patriots. And we were watching the game. And again, I'm super nerdy about football. And Cam was at the line of scrimmage.

He saw blitz come. He changed the blitz or changed the protection. He changed his play to a wide receiver screen. It was a walking touchdown. And the broadcast wasn't saying anything about it. He wasn't telling people at home why, what happened happened. And that's what I love. And I was sitting there getting so mad about it.

I was like, you got to talk. Like that was so cool. And my wife was like, you should make a little video and just put it on the internet. And initially I was like, that's a dumb. idea. You know, like, it's stupid. I didn't believe in social media. I thought it was dumb, all that. And then a couple of minutes later, I said, fine. So I muted the television, turned to my cell phone sideways, pointed out all the things that happened, put it on the internet, woke up the next morning, and it went pretty big. And I thought to myself, there it is. Like, that's my thing. And I really

believed that people wanted that and thought that stuff would be really cool. And so I started to do that. And the more that people ate it up, the more real potentially doing television came to me. Twitter is such an interesting place to train

to be an NFL pundit because it's a focus group right away. Yeah. What did you find Twitter responded to and what did they not respond to when you broke down plays? Twitter absolutely responded to making them more educated fans,

pointing out the things that their teams or their fan bases, teams did well. You know, they loved that. Hey, you know, they wanted to know why players were struggling or players didn't make a player. They made a bad play. They ate that stuff up. And I think the visual medium that it allowed it to become was a big deal.

And especially for teams with quarterbacks, are like tweener quarterbacks. You know, he's the 12th best quarterback in the league. Those fan bases love it because, one, it justifies their feeling of, well, my quarterback is top 10, so to speak, or other fan bases of other teams who hate that team. It gives them points to be like, see, your quarterback stinks. You know, so I think just like the reality of fans, you know, it's tied to a lot. a little bit of like fantasy football too, right?

Where fans just feel more educated and they feel more as a part of the football journey that being a fan is, people loved. This is like the zone Trey Lance is in right now. Quarterback we have questions about. For sure, for sure. Who you can point at a few things and say, here's the good part, here's the bad part, here's where we are. Yeah, and I think it allows people a vantage point into,

And to answer the previous question, it gives them a greater appreciation for how hard it is. You know, and getting to, getting folks to understand, okay, the quarterback in this play did nine different things in 1.8 seconds. He also got hit in the middle of his chest by 270 pound human, you know? And so they, it's once you see that and understand that, you can gain a greater appreciation for the performance and then more patience. when it's not necessarily what we want as fans, right? And the Trey Lance is the perfect example of, hey, this, first of all, this player, his first game this season, could not be in a worse situation weather-wise, right?

And so everyone going, well, do they have to bench Trey Lance for Jimmy Groplo? No. He did this on this play. He needs to do this. It's 100% teachable and controllable and fixable. it is just going to take time. It doesn't mean that he stinks, nor does it mean that he's going to be a draft bust.

It just teaches people or points out to people, well, this is where you guys' fans could pay attention to to see if he's actually getting better at this stuff. Did you think of those tweets as an audition for a TV job? 100%. 100%. And I was fortunate, you know, that people early on told me that. You know, hey, I think the one thing for me with Twitter was this.

I would sit at home. And one, the big part of what I do on television is when I do the touch screens. And I use the iPad and I'm teaching people's stuff. I have usually 120 seconds in that world. You don't get 30 seconds to mess up. You don't get 10 seconds to mess up. So Twitter and having to cut those videos taught me early on how to cut the fat out of what I was trying to say. because Twitter only allowed a video of two minutes.

So I could not spend five minutes and mess up and all that stuff. So it taught me economy of words. It taught me cut the fat off of stuff. It also taught me everybody's watching. And you never know who that everybody is. I mean, that's why I got on television first because Peter Schrager's from Good Morning Football saw my stuff on Twitter and called me and asked me if I would do it. And I also think this too, the players see it as well. You know, like fan bases make sure that those players see that stuff.

And I think it gives you automatic credibility and respect from people that are still in those locker rooms playing. Yeah, and it's interesting. I imagine it reintroduces you to TV executives too. Because we all have a list, right? Mike Tomlin, Russell Wilson, and you're basically saying, this is what Dan Orlovsky is or could be as a TV person. 100%. It was the way I phrased it is that was my ESPN. I, you know, I wasn't on ESPN, but I didn't need a ESPN at that moment.

Social media could be, and that's why I did the Periscope stuff as well. Like that was going to be my network to say and show this is me, this is who I am, this is what I can do. And I believe that people want this. And it worked out, obviously. I remember during this period, you were a real taking calls guide to, like every football writer in America, including a few at the ringer, would have a piece about offense. I'm going to call Orlovsky. Yeah. And I'm going to get him to explain it because I know he'll pick up the phone. Sure. Sure. And I know he'll help me out with this. I feel that was kind of a goodwill tour as well.

For sure. And that was, and I still tried to do this. You know, that was the moment where everything was a yes, everything. You know, you know, oh, you want me to drive to New York to go do this? Sure. You want me to drive you want me to do on the phone call for two out absolutely everything was a yes and i like i said i still try to do that um but yeah it was an every opportunity was an important one so you go from imaginary espn on twitter to actual espn in 2018 how did you find you had to talk about football differently on television um you know i remember the first couple times i was on i came home and you know would talk with my wife and a big you have no idea how fast 20 seconds goes until you have to take something that you want to say that takes a minute

and you got 20 seconds to do it. You know, and so that was trying to figure out and learn that stuff. I would say this, one of the best things that I got taught early on. And I sometimes even write myself this note nowadays. We have this producer at ESPN named Pete McConaugn who was, you know, at Get Up, kind of right when I started there, get up, I guess, was in flux, with all that, whatever. And he called me one day and, you know, said really positive things. And he said, dude, land the airplane. Don't, you know, he said, take off. Don't give me the landing. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like,

why will the cowboys be good this year? And you'll go and you'll tell everybody all the reasons why they're going to be good. And then you'll come to your final point. give me the final point and then give me the reasons. You know, so the perfect example is, are the chiefs going to be better without Tyree Kill? You know, and instead of saying, well, they've added these pieces at wide receiver and yes, because they're going to be more difficult to defend and then go. You know, and I think that was a really good learning moment for me to really get out that.

And TV is so important. And again, you can't just say anything. anything and you can't just say something, but it's so important to punch and then jab, punch and then jab. So if you start that answer about the chiefs with yes, then me as a viewer at home, I'm going to perk up and go, oh, he's right or he's wrong and I'm going to ride with you through the response. Exactly. Or if you just flipped it, I might tune out and be like, eh, I don't really care about the name of the chief's receivers. Well, well, they got. Marquez Valdez Scantling

next, you know. But if I say, oh, absolutely, they're going to be more difficult to defend. You're going to sit there and go, you're crazy, dude. It's Tyree Kill. Or when I tell you, well, they're going to have one of the best offensive lines in football and they're going to put their Hall of Fame quarterback under center

and, you know, now they've got five or six people to throw the ball to so they're going to be less formation dependent. Then you sit there and you go. Now, I could be wrong, but at least I'm giving you my reasons why after I told you what my, hey, my punch you in the face answer was. Monday is the money day for NFL opinion guys and gals on ESPN.

Can you give us a sense of what your Monday schedule is like during the season? Yeah, yeah. I give you a quick Monday and then a quick week. Monday I get up at four and I have a car. I live in Westport, Connecticut, so I'm about 50 minutes to an hour to the Seaport Studios in New York. picks me up about four in the morning. I hop in the car. I start re-watching Sunday night football on the laptop in the car. I get there. We go over the production plan for the show. We go over

the highlights of the show. 7.30 I usually do sports center hit. 740. I go in, watch all the highlights with Greenie when I'm going to get in, when I'm going to get out with the highlights. 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock. I do that. In between that, I'm getting notes or emails from first take of what their topics are and what my answers are. I run over, do first take from 10 to 11. I hop in the car. I go from New York to Bristol, Connecticut, which usually takes about two hours and 10, two hours and 20 minutes. I rewatch at least two games in the car from Sunday that I know, you know, going to be more so the talking points that Monday or Tuesday, get up to Bristol, do a production meeting, rewatch another game in between 2.30 and 4. do NFL live 4 to 5 head home Tuesday morning I get up probably about 5 o'clock I get about

two or three more games rewatched prepare for NFL live during the day calls production all that stuff Wednesday get up about 5 finish off all the NFL games that I haven't gotten done prepare for NFL live production calls all that Thursday wake up start preparing for college football game, do first take, do SportsCenter, do NFL live, college prep, flyout Friday, go to the game, call a game Saturday, Sunday, watch the games. And I usually watch, rewatch three or four games Sunday in between the four and seven o'clock game and then Sunday night as Sunday night football is going on. So that's a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's awesome, dude. Like, I love it. Like, you know, it's, it is a lot. But when I get to watch tape and I find something. that I know no one else is going to find. It is a feeling that is very difficult for me to describe. It brings me such joy. A eureka moment.

Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. I love it. I love it. To that end, Monday on Get Up, you had a breakdown of Brian Daibel and the Giants' offense. You show the series of plays, which ends with them sneaking a wide receiver into the end zone and getting a touchdown.

did you see that live on Sunday and said, oh, I want to use this on first take, or excuse me, use it on GetUp? Or does ESPN say, we need something from the Giants game. Go find us some. Yeah, so no, did not see it live because when those games are going on, I'm trying to see them all. You know, like there's, I'm watching four or five games at a time when they're going online. That's why going back and rewatching it is such a big deal. So I'll feel you went on this Monday. So truthfully, the plan was to try to find something from the Dallas-Tampabay game. And I always tell the ESPN folks, I tell Get Up, ESPN, but certainly Get Up, I tell them,

we want to find something worthy from probably the most talked about game, so to speak, the most desired game. But I have told them, and this is something that changed about two years ago, where they finally, I told them, I was like, listen, I'm not going to do something just to do it. You know, like, you guys got to trust me that I'm going to find the thing that I think is the biggest to deal. And it's great because sometimes I'm wrong and sometimes I'm right. You know, sometimes Greenie will push back or we have a phenomenal producer in Alley. And this week, you know, the plan was Dallas and Tampa. And I just text you like, hey,

there ain't nothing from that game, especially after the injury to deck. And I said, I'm telling you, the story of the weekend is the Giants in Sequin Barclay. And that two point decision and conversion. And I was like, it's four plays. And her pushback was, Dan, four plays, you know, the audience at home, are they going to be able to follow? And it was a moment where I said, Allie, you just trust me. I will get this done under two minutes. It will go quickly. And it's why relationships matter, certainly.

But no, it was just one of those things where I felt like it was the biggest moment of the weekend. The gravitational pull of ESPN is often, is there something from the cowboy game we can talk about? Sure. And you have to sometimes make your case and say, no, no, no, what if we did that? Yeah, and I've kind of always been that way. You know, I think that was one of the things that Greenie and that crew appreciated early on. Because I had to go prove to, I was proving to Mike Greenberg that this dude, Dan Orlovsky, was worth having on Monday mornings after Sunday football.

And so I couldn't go in there every Monday morning and just do what they said. You know, I had to come in there and be like, no, no, no, no, no, guys, we have to do this. And I can't tell you how many times we go in there and I'd be like, yo, we got to talk about this. We're going to get ahead. I remember the year the 49ers went to the Super Bowl in 19. I remember it vividly. It was week four against Carolina and they were running the ball so well. And I remember getting into a 10 minute conversation with Pete McConvo about it.

I'm telling you, Pete, we have to do this. And he was like, Dan, it's San Francisco. You know, like our show was on at 5 o'clock in the morning, their time. And I was just telling him, you have to trust me that this is going to be a big deal in three or four months. And we did it. And it obviously is something we got ahead of. But yeah, you know, I got to trust my eyes. I have to trust my eyes when it comes to football.

You do a lot of these in front of a big Telestrator there on the set. Do you get a rehearsal with the Telestrator before you do it live? Oh, yeah. I practice it four or five times. And I hate taping. I need live. If I'm actually taping it, I'll mess it up three times because I'm an idiot. But I try to at least three or four times in commercial break.

I grab the iPad. I go over to the board myself and I snap into the moment and I pretend like I'm on TV. And I walk through all of it, the things I want to say. When do I engage with the screen? When do I get back to the camera? You know, because again, it's when you're a lot of. You don't get, you know, the, uhs or mistake or, you know, you don't get that. So I try to be very, very ready and prepared and efficient and go from there.

When do you feel like I'm at the edge of my bandwidth? I'm doing 19 shows at one time and you're going to ask me something about football that I do not have a well-worked-out opinion about. I don't ever feel that way. Never? I don't think so. You know, like, I don't believe so, no. I watch every snap. So I think those snaps allow me to formulate my opinion.

And I don't even think it's an opinion. I think it's just a verbal explanation of what I'm seeing. I'll be honest with you. If, you know, I got a call from somebody that was going to ask me to break down to Big Ten right now, I probably couldn't excel at that. But NFL-wise, I don't believe. I don't think that there's many moments where I'm going to sit there and not have a pretty good grasp of what's going on with every team,

at least on their tape. I take a lot of pride in that. I do. That's not for me to brag. I just take a lot of pride in it. And I don't think it's fair than in 2022 for me to expect to go on television and for people to pay attention to me when there's 4,000 other things that they can go pay attention to if I'm not prepared to talk about it.

You know, like, why would, I say this on NFL Live. We get 38 minutes of real television with commercials, 38 minutes. We got to earn your 38 minutes. So I better be on there knowing what the heck I'm talking about and making sure that I'm entertaining and educating you. You mentioned you got into the business because you're watching television and the announcers did not explain something you thought should be explained. So now you're in the booth. First with college games this week with Monday night football for the first time. what's the biggest challenge of trying to get an opinion out in real time about a football play you just saw?

You know, booth is not studio. If studio you have two minutes in a booth, you have two seconds, you know? And so I also think this, people are watching studio stuff often for you, for the people. People ain't watching a game for me. You know, like they're not watching Buffalo, Tennessee for me or for Louis. or Levy, they're going to watch because they want to watch Buffalo and Tennessee play. So I try to keep my perspective that I'm just there allowing those people to enjoy the game more. And as long as I keep that in the forefront and know that moments still matter the most,

the Sequin-Barkley thing is the example. There's going to be moments in that. that football game that are going to give me the opportunity to have an opinion of what should or should have happened or show people why it happened. And if that happens three times in that game, that's a good, that's a good deal. I don't need to sit there and tell everybody what happened on first and 10 in this four-yard run. I don't need to tell people that this third and six is a big play. I don't need to tell people, hey, watch what just happened, even though you just watch. what happened, you know?

So I think that, you know, I tried to do my focus point, and I do this in my college games. I try to do this. What's happening? What should be happening? Something to expect. And I very rarely go backwards. I always try to go forwards or very much so, you know. And I think it goes back to, you know, being okay, being wrong.

Hey, on this third down, if I'm the Tennessee Titans, the one thing I cannot do is allow Josh to get out to his right. I don't care if I pressure that side, but I am not allowing Josh Allen on third and eight to scramble to his right. If he throws the ball to his left and they get a first down, well, we got to, that's fine. But he ain't going to give it. I'm not going to give him the easy way. You say two seconds to make a point. It's actually like, what, 20 seconds you have between plays? Well, it's also, I'm in a three-man booth with Lewis.

so that 20 seconds might be 8 or 10 or 12 of yours. It's a bit, and I try to do this in my college games, remove your ego. You know, the goal is for the booth to sound well and do the game justice and get the respect of the players in the game and the people listening. The goal is not to be trending after this game, you know, and that's a real thing. I'm very conscious of that.

And so, you know, we, fortunate enough that we had those two preseason games, and I would tell you the overwhelming feedback that came from execs, people in the booth, people listening was it sounded conversational. It didn't sound like, okay, Dan, this is your 10 seconds. Lewis, here's your 10 seconds. And I really want that. I want people, what's the saying? You know, everyone, you're sitting there with your buddies watching the game.

That's obviously the goal. And just to have people enjoy the things that Lewis and I are talking about. Over the last 20 years, announcers have been able to talk about football on TV with way, way more complexity than they once did than they did when you and I were growing up. How do you think about the idea of honoring the complexity of the game without losing people who are sitting down and watching Monday Night Football? Yeah, honest answer. When I talk football, I try to pretend that I'm talking to my wife because I think my wife is like 99% of the football fans. my wife loves she's from Philadelphia so she loves football she's a diehard eagles fan and she

knows football she's absolutely no clue about football you know and so i try to keep that as the mindset of like hey you know can you know when i'm talking about man cover three you know i don't want to you know people know what three is and a lot of football fans know what cover three kind of is but i want them to know well this is cover three meaning these two guys, I don't need to tell you what the 11 people are. These two guys, that's their responsibility. And this is what this team did to make it really hard for them to do their responsibility. And I think that's part of that cutting out the fat thing.

And that's a benefit of me being in studio. I totally believe that having experience of in studio stuff and doing the breakdowns exponentially, exponentially, yeah, prepares you for doing that stuff on live. television in-game booths because you realize the focal point is so much more important than the giant picture when it comes to that stuff. When I hear young announcers, that's a mistake they make all the time, is they see six things on a play. And they come back in the replay.

I'm going to tell the audience all six of these things. And at home, I was like, no, no, no. Me, the basic football fan wants to know the one thing you saw or maybe two, but you can't tell me six right now because I'm just, it's going to overwhelm me. You lose me. And the reality is once, especially on television, once I take that yellow pen and I put a mark of circle or something on that, it's hard for my eyes to leave that. We're visual people, right? So if I draw a circle here, a line there, a circle here all at the same time, my goodness gracious, dude, I have, you know, like I'm lost. So, you know, and the focus

point is not not what happened on that play why did that play happen okay so why did that play happen well this receiver went inside and the safety followed him now i have this giant window on the left to throw the football so you know i'll be honest with you one of the guys who i think does an awesome job of it is troy i honestly believe that i'm not saying that because he's at as bn i i felt that for a couple years now and I've tried to mirror it where, you know, sometimes Troy simplifies things so well that it's like, oh, yeah, I get that, you know, it's, oh, that linebacker, his eyes were at that motion. That's why that tailback went right there. So, again, the star of the show should not be mean.

The star of the show are the players that are making the plays. And if I can get people to understand why those plays are being made or not being made, both audio and visually, then I'm doing my job. Speaking to Troy, when you're calling a game, how much of the job do you think is criticizing players and coaches?

Well, I would tell you 100% of it. A hundred percent of the game is, you know, maybe that's not the best way. I think you have to be willing to 100% of the time do that. Like, you've got to be willing to sit there and say, that guy, you know, he didn't operate that or execute that play the right way.

Or, you know, that's not the way that the play call should have been. Or my goodness, you know, how do you not call a timeout on fourth and five and at least have the conversation about that play? Or, you know, the Monday night football game just packed weeks, past week is a perfect example of it. You know, you got to be critical in that situation because everyone at home is thinking it, you know, and everyone at home is sitting there going, what the heck are you doing? So, yeah, I don't, I try not to be critical of. the player and or the coach, unless it's necessary,

I have a job to do. And those players and coaches are not paying my salary. I try to be critical of how guys are performing and how coaches are performing rather than the person. There are times, even given all the wonderful detail announcers, can get into now, that I just want them to say, that was a really bad pass. because I think sometimes the replay and the detail

becomes an escape from saying the obvious thing. Yeah. I know you watched the Thursday night opener. At the end of the game, Chris Collins was like, let's just say this. The Rams stunk tonight. Like they were awful. And sometimes it's really helpful as a viewer

just to have somebody say that out loud because that helps me understand and think about the game. And it also reaffirms your own thoughts. I mean, that's part of it. You know, again, I think one of the things that people at home want is they want to feel like part of the game. They want to feel like they're going on that. And they want to feel validated with some of their thoughts,

their fans, but they love it. And they want to feel validated and that they know the football as well. You know, listen, football is a complicated or a simple game that we overcomplicate as players and coaches. And I think broadcasting is a little bit like that. We don't have to overcomplicate it. That quarterback just made an awesome. I'll go back to last year.

So there was that stretch where Patrick was struggling in the last year. little bit, right? And I remember one week watching the tape and just writing the note, like mechanically, he's really poor right now. In the second or third, four or five weeks in a row, the mechanics were bad. And I remember calling our producer for NFL live and saying, hey, you got to trust me. I know what I'm about to do on TV today, but I got to do it. And I said, I'm going to come at the best quarterback in football, you know? And I'm aware of that. I know who I am, guys. I'm abundantly aware of that. that I'm not Patrick Mahomes.

But I think the great thing about football players, specifically NFL guys, is they know the truth. And 99% of them are okay with knowing the truth. They know when they don't play well. And they've spent their life hearing people tell them, you did not do this well. You know, so like players should, they don't get shocked when they're struggling. And they know that, man, my mechanics are bad. They know. So I actually think you gain more respect from players when you tell the truth.

And don't try to sugarcoat it for them and cover up for them. So, you know, when I went on NFL live last year, I said, Patrick Mhams right now, mechanically, he's the worst quarterback in football. I knew what I was doing. I knew that I was, you know, attacking the playing of a guy who's one of the greatest ever. But it was necessary. and it was the right thing to do when it came to my job. You've reached the level of TV notoriety where everything you say gets aggregated.

Here are some recent headlines. Dan Orlovsky praises Desmond Ritters's improved arm strength. Dan Orlowski fights off the rest of the ESPN get-up crew and defends Tua. Stephen A calls Dan Rolovsky pathetic. How does it feel to be aggressively aggregated? I don't know if I'm used to it, to be honest with you. you man like uh you know i know it's a thing uh and i try not to pay attention to it you know espn is the machine right so i i know um that everything i say is is as pretty much forefront

i don't get caught up in that i just really try to do my job and be convicted about the things that i want to have conversations about sometimes i forget it though sometimes you know word'll get back to me i got a message from a coach the other day uh just yesterday and uh he had some really nice things to me to say I've never met him. I've never played on a team that he was a staff on. And also, I don't know, I just tried to be very much so in the moment. I try to be very much so unapologetic about the way that I go about it. And sometimes I do lose sight of the fact that, dude, you're on ESPN saying this stuff. There's 400,000 people watching this. But I don't get caught up in that. I don't try not to.

pay attention to it. Couple more for you, Dan. You went on Pat McAfee's show right after the Super Bowl this year and said your deal with ESPN was up. Was the chance to call Monday Night Football, what led you to resign with ESPN? Man, it was the tipping point. If I'm being dead honest, yeah, you know,

I could take you into it a little bit. So, like, I was ready at that time, you know, three years ago when I resigned to the ESPN after my initial deal, I wasn't ready to move on because I was still very new. And I know this is an ever-changing business. And I think this is the first time I was like, okay, I really want to see what other opportunities there are.

And if it means going to a different network or it means moving from Connecticut and away from the East Coast, I was ready for that after multiple conversations with my wife. And there were moments in the negotiations where I thought it was going to happen. I honestly did. I really did. I thought, I mean, me and my wife were just about to go to Los Angeles and start looking at homes and schools. You know, we have four kids, so we had to be prepared for that. And, you know, I think that it was going to be tough to leave ESPN because it's kind of, I grew up watching Sports Center like so many kids, but I grew up watching Sports Center growing up 40 minutes from it. You know, ESPN was like heaven, so to speak. So that would have been weird. I adore the people I get to work with. with on a daily base, I mean, to leave the NFL live crew would have been probably the hardest thing. You know, those people have become family to me. And honestly, they've made me exponentially, but so much better at television. But they've become dear friends. But I was at that point where I said,

dude, I got to, I got to do its best for me and my family. And the work that I've done, you know, like I gave you my schedule. I had done that four straight years. I was grinding. And, you know, I wanted to be challenged with a new opportunity. I believed that I was ready for it. I believed that the work that I had done had proved that I was ready for it. And so when they ESPN finally came to my people, my reps and said,

this is what we want to do. That finally gave the moment, be like, all right, I cannot, I can't pass up that opportunity. I can't leave because that is an opportunity in a situation that is an incredible one. And when you say LA, I assume you're referring to opportunities at Fox, would you have been calling NFL games from the booth for Fox under that scenario?

Yeah, that was going to be part of that transition, yes. You still get calls from the NFL asking if you have interest in being a coach or in a front office for a franchise? Yeah. I've had a couple instances over the past couple weeks where people have reached out and asked, you know, both for more for coaching than front office stuff. But I've had two instances, probably in like the last month where people, you know, gauge my interest level or are you, you know, where are you with this?

And it's always incredibly flattering. I often say, because they ask, are you interested in coaching? My answer is always yes. Because absolutely, I'll always be interested in coaching. Right now I love getting to do what I get to do. I feel like I'm coaching people at home. I have four young kids, you know, so I like the ability to see them. You know, the coaching business is a very, very difficult one.

So, yeah, right now I love it. That's something you'd be potentially interested somewhere down the road. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, absolutely, because the right situation and having the opportunity to be a part of that, I tell it to the NFL live crew all the time, and I say thank you to them. my greatest love of being in the NFL was the locker room.

I was the backup quarterback, right? So the locker room to me was the greatest place in the world. I don't have that. But the NFL live crew has become that for me in many ways. And to have the opportunity to be a part of that again someday would be awesome. About those kids. Are you a sports dad? Yeah, I'm a maniac.

Now, yeah, my kids love sports. So I have three boys that are 10, they're triplets. They're into all kinds of sports And then I have a daughter who's six Who's sporty my wife is sporty she has She played sports growing up I love sports I'm a jock obviously So I think youth sports are

Shambles So I try we do everything in our household Not to be that But yeah we're a sport family We have sporty kids for sure What's a shambles about youth sports I think that the ask and demand of kids in sports Nowadays is a joke

It's become such a business. If you're not the greatest 10-year-old in the world, you stink. And so the pressure for these kids to go perform. I saw a stat the other day, 70% of 13-year-olds quit playing sports by that age. They don't do that because, you know, that's happening because the pressure, the expectation, the demand. You know, I'll be candid. My sons are 10 years old playing flag football for the first. time, they have practiced four days a week and then a game as a fifth day. That is more than the

NFL does. So, you know, and I've voiced that to then to their coaches being guys, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I've even told my wife, there's going to be moments where we don't take them to practice for a day because they just need to be kids a little bit, you know. And so I just, I just really believe that the demand, the pressure, and the expectations for kids to be so good at sports. It's such a young age. It's taken a lot of the joy away from it. And mommy and daddy have tried to buy star players so often nowadays. And I just don't think that's the way to go about it. Are you getting to watch these flag football games? Are you off calling a college game that day? I don't get to do the football because of the college stuff,

which breaks my heart, to be honest, too, because obviously, you know, my love for it. But I get to coach their basketball teams for the most part. I get to coach baseball, get to coach lacrosse. I love coaching them. They're at an age where they've kind of hinted at, Dad, we don't like when you coach. I'm an intense person, right? Like, I'm an intense dude. So they've hinted to be like, hey, we prefer you. He's just sit and be quiet. So, but I, nothing brings me more joy family-wise than, you know, when we get to go watch them kind of compete and, you know, go on their own athletic journey. Dan Orlovsky, thanks for coming on the press box.

My pleasure, man. Big fan. Thank you. All right, huge thanks to Dan Orlovsky. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Devin Manzi. David Shoemaker and I are back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then.