Despite initially teasing that he would explore his options elsewhere, all indications appeared to be that Dan Orlovsky would remain at ESPN once his contract expired this offseason.<\/p>\n
But while that\u2019s ultimately what wound up happening with the Worldwide Leader officially announcing a new contract<\/a> for the former NFL quarterback on Wednesday, Orlovsky says his free agency decision was hardly a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n Joining Thursday\u2019s episode of the SI Media with Jimmy Traina<\/a> podcast, the former UConn star discussed his decision to remain with ESPN. And when asked if he was ever close to leaving the Disney-owned network, Orlovsky immediately replied \u201cyes\u201d before providing more context.<\/p>\n \u201cI came close to very seriously entertaining other places,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is I do myself a disservice if I don\u2019t\u2026 I\u2019ve worked my absolute tail off for six or seven years now to get to that point this summer. I didn\u2019t want to make a decision \u2018just cause\u2019 or emotionally or in the moment. So yeah, I tried to take my time to be very conscious of it and open-minded to every element or opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of really really deep conversations had with myself and my wife and our kids and other places and coaching. And it\u2019s not necessarily the next step for 2025 or 2026. It\u2019s what would be the next step for five years from now? Seven years from now. I worked really hard. I\u2019m really proud to say that. It\u2019s a trademark of kind of who I am. And I wanted to, for a lack of a better term, take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Orlovsky didn\u2019t initially specify who he entertained offers from, aside from reviving his longstanding flirtation with coaching<\/a>. He did, however, confirm that CBS had offered him its top college football game analyst role<\/a>, as The Athletic\u2019s Andrew Marchand previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n But according to Orlovsky, that opportunity wouldn\u2019t have limited him to just the college ranks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys at CBS, I absolutely love,\u201d he said. \u201cThe opportunity with CBS was basically going to be all-encompassing. It wasn\u2019t going to be just a college opportunity. There was going to be \u2014 maybe not like that day, but in the future, whether it was a month from then, six months from then, a year from then \u2014 it was going to be an all-encompassing opportunity and that was really enticing.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Orlovsky re-upped with ESPN on a four-year deal, although he still maintains aspirations that extend beyond his new contract. That includes a desire to call one of the NFL\u2019s biggest games each week, and of course, coaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite initially teasing that he would explore his options elsewhere, all indications appeared to be that Dan Orlovsky…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[1774,7,42305],"class_list":{"0":"post-196796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-dan-orlovsky","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-si-media-with-jimmy-traina"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114830397275563415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}