{"id":700607,"date":"2026-01-24T04:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/700607\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T04:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:16:19","slug":"is-dan-orlovsky-trying-to-get-the-rams-oc-job-with-his-strange-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/700607\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Dan Orlovsky trying to get the Rams OC job with his strange pick?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On why he picked the Rams to beat the Seahawks in the NFC Championship game on First Take this week, ESPN\u2019s Dan Orlovsky didn\u2019t say it was because he thinks L.A. is the better team, or that Sam Darnold will make too many mistakes, or that Sean McVay is the best coach in the playoffs. In fact, he said that he was picking the Rams to win even though it\u2019s \u201cwrong\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather be wrong than un-loyal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlovsky, who has been open about his interest in becoming an offensive coordinator, is close friends with Matthew Stafford, a teammate of his on the Detroit Lions. He was also once signed by McVay to coach Jared Goff, not to be a quarterback for the Rams. Is Orlovsky picking the Rams \u2014 a choice that HE SAID WAS \u201cWRONG\u201d \u2014 because he wants to be Stafford\u2019s next OC and McVay\u2019s next protege?<\/p>\n

The Rams might not lose offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to a head coaching job, but he\u2019s rumored to be one of the top-three candidates for the Arizona Cardinals according to a report by Adam Schefter. If LaFleur leaves L.A. for a head coaching position, or a different offensive coordinator position (as someone who doesn\u2019t call plays, that\u2019s always on the table), he\u2019ll be the latest in a long line of Rams offensive coordinators to part with the team under McVay.<\/p>\n

Does Orlovsky think he has a realistic shot at replacing LaFleur and potentially getting into the NFL coaching pipeline?<\/p>\n

With Philip Rivers interviewing to be the next head coach of the Buffalo Bills on Friday, anything is possible.<\/p>\n

Last week, Orlovsky told Pat McAfee that he would \u201clove to be the offensive coordinator\u201d of the Lions, if they would have them. They\u2026did not want to have him.<\/p>\n

Notably, this would be an apt time for Orlovsky to leave broadcasting for a new career path. <\/p>\n

NFL fans are questioning his biases more than ever<\/a> and his credibility (which is something that only you can judge for yourself believe exists or not) is under fire. On Thursday, Orlovsky for some reason felt the need to apologize to C.J. Stroud for criticizing him after Stroud<\/a> had one of the worst performances by a quarterback in playoff history. Criticizing Stroud isn\u2019t a problem for an analyst, it\u2019s the job. Apologizing for your analysis? That\u2019s strange and not the job.<\/p>\n

But apologizing for doing his job is not unusual for Orlovsky. After all, he\u2019s the same person who in 2021 reported that his sources said Justin Fields was a \u201clast in, first out\u201d player at Ohio State<\/a> and then a day later apologized for it. Well, which is it? Were you reporting something that wasn\u2019t true and never happened or are you apologizing for doing the job you\u2019re being hired for? Orlovsky never denied his report was true, he just apologized for being a reporter.<\/p>\n

Orlovsky\u2019s past with McVay<\/p>\n

Saying that you\u2019re not picking the Rams to win, but you\u2019re picking your friend to still like you after today, doesn\u2019t exactly help Orlovsky\u2019s case with the public\u2019s perception of your credibility and biases. It would be different if Orlovsky said, \u201cI\u2019m picking the Rams to win because I believe they\u2019re a better team and I believe Matthew Stafford is going to carry them to a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

There would be nothing wrong with that but it\u2019s not what he said. Even though the rest of ESPN\u2019s crew picked the Seahawks to win, it doesn\u2019t mean that the Seahawks will win. Nobody knows what will happen. Seattle could lose! Orlovksy could have simply said, \u201cI\u2019m picking the Rams. Deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he said that the Rams would lose but he doesn\u2019t care, he\u2019s picking the Rams on the screen so that Matthew Stafford (and Sean McVay) sees it and knows he was \u201cloyal\u201d.<\/p>\n

But will it get you a job with the Rams like you might think?<\/p>\n

One more thing. Orlovsky was on the Rams in 2017, Sean McVay\u2019s first year with the team. He didn\u2019t make the roster, but McVay told him that he would never make the team. The Rams only signed Orlovsky in 2017 because McVay wanted a mentor on the roster for Goff<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You\u2019re not going to do anything in training camp, Dan,\u2019\u201d Orlovsky recalled McVay telling him, via Farrar. \u201c\u2018I just need you to teach him how to study tape, and teach him about defenses.\u2019 And this isn\u2019t a knock on Jared at all. Jared will tell you this straight up. I go out there, and every day, we would study tape in the meeting rooms. I would then go to Jared\u2019s house and he had spent money, because Jared wanted to learn. He built himself a film study room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlovsky goes onto say that Goff isn\u2019t \u201cdumb\u201d but that he didn\u2019t know a lot of things that he really should have learned in college, if not high school.<\/p>\n

Does Orlovsky think McVay might want him to do the same teaching for a quarterback who L.A. drafts in April? It might make sense if Orlovsky\u2019s connection is Matthew Stafford, a close friend of his, going to bat (or should I say \u201cnot being un-loyal\u201d) and saying that he\u2019d be comfortable with Orlovsky as a quarterbacks coach, passing game coordinator, or offensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

After all, the Rams are primed to lose more coach than one; Nate Scheelhaase could be leaving too. Coaches could be poached by other teams in the coming weeks. And Orlovsky\u2019s just the type of snake oil salesman to see enough steps down the line to set himself up for a job he wants, whether he\u2019s right for it or not. He did it when he went from one of the worst quarterbacks in NFL history to Twitter to ESPN.<\/p>\n

Is his next con job the L.A. Rams?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On why he picked the Rams to beat the Seahawks in the NFC Championship game on First Take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,3378,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-700607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-los-angeles","10":"tag-los-angeles-rams","11":"tag-los-angeles-rams-rumors","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangelesrams","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115948144985829230","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700607","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=700607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}