Ohio State football: Clearing up Dan Orlovsky’s comments on Justin Fields

The former Ohio State football player is garnering plenty of discussion before the draft. Some of it recently has not been good.

ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky created quite a stir yesterday on the Pat McAfee Show with comments about the supposed work ethic of Justin Fields. Let’s get this out of the way now: Orlovsky did not bash Fields. He was simply repeating what his sources have told him. Sources Orlovsky says will be part of the decision-making process for their teams on draft day.

When asked by McAfee why Fields seems to be falling out of the number two quarterback spot in the draft, Orlovsky actually defended the former Buckeye, “I saw the whole thing, like, they want to know if he can read defenses, right? People who say he can’t get off number one, once they say that, stop listening to them.”

Orlovsky makes it clear he is only repeating what his sources have told him, “I have heard that he is a last guy in first guy out type of quarterback. Like, not the maniacal work ethic.” The second thing he claims to have been told by his sources has to do with questioning Fields’ desire to be a great quarterback and put time into improving his problem areas.

When he was a part of the broadcast team for Ohio State’s game with Michigan State, Orlovsky said that’s when he became a believer in Fields because he was great at leading a team missing a good number of players due to COVID.

He said his two biggest criticisms of Fields are how deliberate he is in his decision-making and his throwing motion. The ESPN analyst makes it clear he still likes Justin Fields. You can hear Orlovsky’s comments for yourself by clicking here.

So, what about the claims concerning the work ethic of Fields? Former Buckeye linebacker Joshua Perry was interviewed on Sirius/XM radio’s B1G Ten This Morning show and said that accusation doesn’t compute for him. He also pointed out statements like that would not be made by anyone in the Ohio State program.

Perry said you don’t get to this point by not putting in the work needed. He said Ryan Day’s offense is not easy to learn, which is something other quarterbacks coached by Day at OSU have said, and there is no way Fields could be so successful after he transferred if he did not have a great work ethic.

One of Fields’ former Buckeye teammates, Trey Sermon, was interviewed on the NFL Channel on Sirius/XM as well today and said he is a great leader, very vocal, and a winner. He continued by saying Fields helps everyone around him to get better.

Where does this kind of thing come from? We see these kinds of pre-draft smokescreens every year. NFL teams quietly put out disinformation in hopes of a player falling to them. This is nothing new, and hopefully, it all gets put to rest in the weeks leading up to the first round of the draft on April 29th.

Buckeye fans need to give Dan Orlovsky a break. He simply answered a question by citing what his sources have been telling him. As for Justin Fields, regardless of when he goes in the draft and who he goes to, he’s going to be just fine.