Dan Orlovsky Calls Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo 'Classless' After Shot About NFL Career

Dan Orlovsky was on location to cover the NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando over the weekend and stole the show by posting the highest score in the Precision Passing challenge. He put up better numbers than CJ Stroud and Baker Mayfield, two playoff-caliber quarterbacks. The low-hanging fruit was plucked by the masses in terms of making fun of the active players who got beat by Orlovsky but the only real takeaway is that Dan's still got it, baby.

On Monday the clip of Orlovsky participating made the rounds on all of ESPN's studio shows with his coworkers getting the opportunity to gently poke fun at the former NFL quarterback. But once First Take rolled around things took a turn.

Stephen A. Smith and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo watched the clip and Smith gave a joking take about how his performance makes up for the starts Orlovsky made as a member of the 0-16 Detroit Lions. Instead of adopting a similar tone Russo slammed Orlovsky and said he was a "scrub" when he was in the league.

A weirdly aggressive thing to say about your colleague. Russo had time to think it over, too. You can see the wheels turning as he mulls the consequences before firing away. Orlovsky was not appreciative of his words, calling Mad Dog "classless."

I mean... hard to disagree, right? Russo has made a career off bashing people with similar language but that doesn't mean it's cool to do whenever he wants and certainly does not mean it's permanently open season on people he works with. What did he think would happen? That Orlovsky would laugh off having his career diminished like this? Giving radio-style takes about colleagues is a funny theoretical SNL bit but does far more harm than good in practice.

Russo will undoubtedly say he's joking and perhaps apologize, but his comments surely will not be popular within the Worldwide Leader.