Last season, Jeff Saturday made the jump directly from the ESPN studio to the sideline, taking over as the Colts’ interim coach after Frank Reich was fired. One of Saturday’s former network colleagues—former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky—has seen his name come up in coaching rumors over the last few months, but he resisted the call this offseason, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
According to Schefter, both the Colts, who just hired Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen as head coach, and the Panthers, who hired Reich earlier in the coaching cycle, had discussions with Orlovsky about “prominent offensive coaching roles.” He ultimately opted to remain with ESPN.
Orlovsky’s name came up prominent when Saturday was building out his interim Indianapolis staff during the fall. In an interview with Dan Patrick, he said that Saturday hadn’t reached out to him directly about a coaching job, and said that he wouldn’t lobby, but that he’d made his coaching aspirations known.
“I made myself pretty clear to Jeff. I want to coach one day, I’m very much interested in it,” the former Lions quarterback said. “Candidly, as the days go on and on I get more interested in it…I have a lot of friends who are coaches in the league and we talk all the time, they know where I stand.”
It doesn’t appear that this new step in his career will come in 2023, but he is clearly interested in making the leap into coaching at some point.
