Is Dan Orlovsky the next assistant coach for the Indianapolis Colts?
Earlier this week, it was announced that former Colts center Jeff Saturday named Colts Interim head coach. This has opened the door for Dan Orlovsky, who was a colleague with Saturday at ESPN, to join the coaching staff in Indianapolis.
Orlovsky was drafted in 2005 by the Detroit Lions and played for four different teams in his 12-year career. He currently works as an NFL analyst for ESPN.
Orlovsky is not the most experienced candidate as he has not coached at the collegiate or professional level. However, that might not matter as Saturday had only coached at the high school level before he was named interim coach. Although this was a wild hiring decision, Colts owner Jim Irsay defended his decision to hire the rookie coach.
Orlovsky spoke about the football conversations he had with Saturday when they were colleagues and Orlovsky said, “I’ve made myself pretty clear to Jeff, I want to coach one day.” The full clip of Orlovsky can be seen below.
It will be interesting to see how the situation develops. The Colts fired former head coach Frank Reich and offensive coordinator Marcus Brady on Monday. This gives Saturday some room to rebuild his staff and one of the new acquisitions could be Orlovsky.
The Colts’ current situation
Indianapolis is currently 3-5-1 amid an extremely disappointing season. The franchise had their dreams crushed last year when they missed the playoffs due to a loss to the eventual 3-14 Jacksonville Jaguars in the final week of the regular season. The Colts have only gone downhill since, having underperformed this whole 2022 season.
Saturday will have some talented players at his disposal, including linebacker Shaquille Leonard, guard Quenton Nelson, running back Jonathan Taylor and wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr.
While the Colts’ defense has been serviceable, their offense has been atrocious for most of the season, due in large part to a struggling offensive line and the quarterback carousel that has plagued them over the past couple of seasons. Saturday will be inheriting a tough situation in his first taste of NFL coaching and Dan Orlovsky may be a possible answer to help remedy the Colts’ ongoing quarterback nightmare.
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