Part of what makes Dan Orlovsky such a compelling character on ESPN airwaves is that he doesn\u2019t have much of a filter. And according to his\u00a0NFL Live teammate Laura Rutledge, sometimes that extends to the transaction speculation he throws out on air.<\/p>\n
As NFL season preview coverage begins in earnest for the Worldwide Leader, Orlovsky got attention for wondering aloud whether Las Vegas pass-rusher Maxx Crosby will finish the season with the Raiders, after an offseason trade to Baltimore collapsed.<\/p>\n
Reacting to Orlovsky\u2019s idea Wednesday on The Pat McAfee Show<\/a>, Rutledge pumped the brakes, revealing that many times, Orlovsky will throw out theories that the audience takes as informed speculation or reporting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Dan-O, as (McAfee Show\u00a0contributor Darius Butler) said earlier, he could have just been yapping. I don\u2019t know if Dan-O has actual sources,\u201d Rutledge laughed. \u201cThere have been a few times where he\u2019s come up with stories like this, and we\u2019re like, \u2018Dan, where are you hearing that?\u2019 And he\u2019s like, \u2018I just think that it would be a good idea.\u2019 Like, OK, well, you can\u2019t say as if it\u2019s true, because then people believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For instance, during the 2025 playoffs, Orlovsky said there was a \u201cvery real chance<\/a>\u201d that Kansas City legend Travis Kelce would retire if the Chiefs won a third straight Super Bowl. Prior to that, Orlovsky speculated on ESPN that he \u201ccould see<\/a>\u201d Rex Ryan coaching the New York Jets again. Both takes were couched as Orlovsky\u2019s opinion, but also stated in such a way that the average viewer might believe Orlovsky had inside information.<\/p>\n It seems that the same was true with Orlovsky\u2019s perspective on Crosby this week.<\/p>\n Orlovsky has crossed the powers that be at times during his ESPN career. Once, Orlovsky shared a story of posting several eye emojis on X and getting a phone call from Adam Schefter<\/a> asking what information he had. Orlovsky also ended up in\u00a0<\/a>the midst of a conspiracy theory<\/a> about his agency, CAA, this past season, as viewers questioned his preference for CAA client Matthew Stafford over Drake Maye for\u00a0NFL MVP.<\/p>\n Not all of this is Orlovsky\u2019s fault, of course. The line between reporter and analyst is blurry at best, and often each individual makes their own decisions about how to handle their business. Orlovsky certainly never claims to be an insider or reporter, so his opinions being taken as fact probably says more about the broader industry and how other analysts do their jobs than Orlovsky going out on a big limb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part of what makes Dan Orlovsky such a compelling character on ESPN airwaves is that he doesn\u2019t have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,24982,82982,593,405280,85,170126],"class_list":["post-833314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dan-orlovsky","tag-laura-rutledge","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-live","tag-sports","tag-the-pat-mcafee-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}