In February, with his ESPN contract nearing its end, Dan Orlovsky offered a measured hint about what might come next: “You never know what the future holds.” It wasn’t just a throwaway line. Over the following months, the former NFL quarterback turned analyst kept things deliberately vague. There were murmurs of retirement, speculation about a move to CBS, even light talk, half-serious, half-nostalgic, of an NFL return. As his time at ESPN edged toward a conclusion, Orlovsky stayed visible, relevant, and unmistakably in play.

As events unfolded, it wasn’t just CBS that attempted a recruitment, but NFL tried to as well. The former Lions player almost found his way back to the league. To the place where it all started…as a coach. Although he played as a backup quarterback throughout his career, starting only 12 games over 12 years, it was his eye for detail that secured him a place in the ESPN analyst corps. Once there, backup QB was history. It was front seat all the way.

Although he decided on staying with ESPN, he seemed rueful about the coaching offers he had to decline. In a conversation with Jimmy Traina from SI Media, Dan said, “There’s a part of me that will always desire coaching, I guess. I’ll go back to being together, being team, being part of something that is never going to leave the fabric of who I am.” For Dan, who now looks at the field as an outsider, the QB in him who lived that life craves to be a part of the field again. The coaching offers that he received were taken seriously. “I had some really intense and deep conversations this off-season with people about coaching. I did. Probably more intense than I have ever had,” continued Dan.  

It took one GM to ask whether this was the right option for Dan to think about the things around him. “I went to my wife and I said, hey, if there was a time where you wanted to change, make a move, move somewhere differently, this would be the window of opportunity to do it. Just through some real conversations that we’ve had with my wife and we have with our kids, it was like, all right, this is where we want to be right now.” That changed the way Dan thought it through. It was no longer about him and what he wanted to achieve. It was about his family and the community they’ve built.

Would he be willing to risk all that? No. Dan played it safe and re-signed with ESPN. And that might even have been the right choice. 

Dan Orlovsky gets a multi-year extension with ESPN

Dan Orlovsky’s return to the ESPN office was mixed with a lot of spice and drama. He could’ve gone anywhere, and he surely kept everyone in suspense. 

Notably, Dan confirmed that his new deal with ESPN is official, last Wednesday. “Officially official,” he wrote on social media. “Unbelievably grateful. Unfinished work to be done. The best job in the world.” Under the new deal, Dan will continue as the lead analyst on NFL Live, will return to Monday Night Football for five games in 2025, and will also appear regularly on First Take, Get Up, SportsCenter, and The Pat McAfee Show. 

As Dan put it himself, he stopped being the “nice guy.” In the same talk with Traina, Dan went on to say, “My wife always would say this to me. She, you know, in my playing days, there was an element where I was like the nice guy, you know, so I would go to a team or stay with a team because, you know, the team wanted me there type of thing. maybe not taking a different opportunity and just trying to be conscious of that.”

Well, Dan sure played his part well and made sure he wasn’t the ‘nice guy’ anymore when it came to securing his mega deal.