Dan Orlovsky Shares Jaw-Dropping Story About An NFL Coach Nodding Off Mid-Game

Before he became one of the more-prominent voices covering the NFL, Dan Orlovsky spent a dozen years playing quarterback in the NFL. During his time in the league, he had not one, but two separate stints playing for the Detroit Lions.

Orlovsky's first run with the Lions concluded in 2008, the year the franchise went 0-16. As a member of arguably the worst team in the history of the NFL, it should come as no surprise that Orlovsky has a few memorable stories from his tenure in Detroit, but the one he recently shared is shocking, even by Detroit Lions standards.

During his sitdown on ESPN's ‘Unsportsmanlike,’ the topic of conversation turned to communication between coaches and players on the field. To say Orlovsky has some unique experience when it comes to communicating with coaches would be an understatement.

The former fifth-round pick dove into a story about a coordinator falling asleep in the middle of a game, which is hard to believe, until you remember we're talking about the Detroit Lions in the early 2000s.

"We had a couple of coaches, experience-wise, where the coach would call the play into me, I was on the sideline as the backup, and we would relay the play to the starting quarterback. I don't know why the mechanism was like that," Orlovsky began. 

"We had a moment, honest to God, true story, zero exaggeration, where there was a change of possession. Punt, commercial, we come out of the commercial, the play clock is starting, and I'm waiting for the playcall, and all I'm hearing is [a snoring noise]. The coach, our playcaller, our offensive coordinator, fell asleep in the middle of the game and didn't get a call in."

Orlovksy didn't name the coach, but did leave a clue on social media that the unnamed coordinator caught up on his sleep during a home game.

During his first run in Detroit, from 2005-2008, Orlovsky had four different offensive coordinators: Greg Olson, Ted Tollner, Mike Martz, and Jim Coletto. Then, while on Detroit's roster from 2014-2016, the Lions' offense was run by Jim Bob Cooter and Joe Lombardi.

Just add this story to the list of reasons the Detroit Lions are a storied franchise for the most embarrassing of reasons.