This topic fell by the wayside because it got lost in the local mix on Friday.

Long story short, ESPN’s Dan Orlosky went on Pat McAfee’s show earlier in the week and said some things about Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields that were deemed controversial, because people thought it trended into racial stereotype territory.

On the topic of Fields sliding down some draft boards, he said, in part (via Awful Announcing):

“One, I have heard that he is a last-guy-in, first-guy-out type of quarterback. Like, not the maniacal work ethic. I’ve even heard it compared to Justin Herbert, where it was like, dude, when Justin Herbert showed up, he was like a psychopath when it came to working and get ready for the draft. Or even at school, like, “Give me more, I want to work non-stop.” And I’ve heard that there are issues with Justin Fields’ work ethic.

The second thing is … Where is his desire to go be a great quarterback? I think that there’s a desire to be a big-time athlete, from what is expressed to me, but where is his desire to be a great quarterback? And to be great, you gotta be willing to find the things that you are not good at and just freaking grind on them.”

What happened is that a lot of people thought he was delivering the stereotypical “black quarterbacks don’t work hard” message, even though that opinion was not coming from Orlovsky himself, but passed on as information he was given from speaking to various sources.

That drew the ire of some national folks, including ESPN colleague and former Buckeye Kirk Herbstreit, who wrote the following in response to Orlovsky ‘updating’ his opinion on Justin Fields’ work ethic:

Bad look for Orlovsky, but Herbstreit is off-base, too. Why? Because his network reports via anonymous sources as standard operating procedure.

Thing is, more often than not, other ESPN personalities get it totally right, like Jeff Passan and Woj and others with a pretty good track record. So Orlovsky isn’t doing anything different from a “reporting” standpoint, his “sources” just ended up giving him bad information. Herbstreit would have been more accurate here if he said, “these sources are wrong, Fields is a hard worker” instead of accusing a colleague of being “reckless and absurd,” because this process for disseminating information was congruent with how most ESPN personalities operate.

Also, Orlovsky reiterated several times that these were not his personal opinions, but the opinions of people he spoke with, so the heart of this issue is an information problem.

Anyway, Barry Jackson at The Miami Herald says ESPN spoke with Orlovsky and Herbstreit and neither will be disciplined:

ESPN has spoken with prominent commentators Dan Orlovsky and Kirk Herbstreit, according to a source, in the wake of Orlovsky’s eyebrow-raising comments about criticism he has heard about Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, and Herbstreit’s decision to publicly admonish Orlovsky for those remarks.

Neither announcer will be suspended, according to a source. But management has addressed the issue with both men. ESPN declined to comment.

And so we all move on.

Kind of a dumb situation in all facets, if we’re being honest. Orlovsky passed along information he heard, and was then admonished because people thought it was playing into a racial stereotype. Orlovsky then walked back and clarified what he said, and ‘updated’ his take, then got ripped by a colleague coming out of left field. So ESPN told them both to cut it out and here we are, on Monday.