Jeff Saturday’s new reality is Dan Orlovsky’s dream.
Orlovsky, the former NFL QB and current ESPN analyst watched his former colleague go from a gig at the Worldwide Leader to being named interim head coach of the Indianapolis Colts on Monday. He told Dan Patrick on Tuesday that he’d love to work with Saturday again on his Colts staff.
“I texted with him yesterday,” Orlovsky said. “‘Hey man, good luck go crush it’ type of thing. We decided to touch base later. So no, he didn’t directly offer me anything.”
Saturday admitted he was “shocked” to land the Colts gig after Frank Reich’s firing on Monday, and he was not alone. The former Indianapolis center had never coached above a high school level.
“My initial thought was ‘wow,’ and then — I work with Jeff two days a week and I’m constantly in conversation with him, and my brain went back to all the conversations that he and I have had over the last, like, six weeks,” Orlovsky said. “And in the moment, I didn’t put two and two together. But as yesterday unfolded, I was like, ‘Oh, now it all makes sense.’
“You know, we would have these really detailed conversations about what was going on in the NFL and, you know, teams that were doing things well, teams that weren’t doing things well. Scheme, philosophy, identity, coaching, all that stuff. And, you know, kind of when the news broke it made a lot more sense why and how we had those conversations.”
One of Saturday’s first tasks was finding an offensive coordinator, as Marcus Brady was fired alongside Reich. He’s expected to name ass game specialist/assistant quarterbacks coach Parks Frazier the offensive play caller.
If the Colts need another body to fill out Saturday’s coaching staff, they know where they can turn.
“I won’t lobby,” Orlovsky told Patrick. “I’ve made myself pretty clear to Jeff. I want to coach one day. I’m very much so interested in it. Candidly, as the days go on and on I get more and more interested in it. You miss that part of football. I love what I get to do at ESPN right now. I love working for a guy like Jimmy Pitaro. I love working with the people I get to work with on a daily basis. I have a lot of friends who coach in the league, we talk all the time, they know where I stand.”