Notes: Former Lions QB Dan Orlovsky continues to shine as NFL analyst

Each week, Detroit Lions fans are blessed with superb explanatory material from former quarterback Dan Orlovsky. For Week 15, he breaks down how the Tampa Bay passing attack can remain dangerous even without the injured Mike Evans on Sunday:

Mr. Orlovsky’s reputation has expanded well beyond the Detroit orbit, though. Lindsay Jones at The Athletic (subscription required) wrote about how the mental sharpness and communications skills that made him valuable with the clipboard turned Orlovsky into a hot media commodity:

Just a little over a year ago, Justin Terranova at the New York Post had an article on how it all started:

Orlovsky was watching the Week 10 Panthers-Dolphins Sunday night game and was explaining to his wife the Xs and Os behind a Cam Newton touchdown pass.

“She said you should make a video and put it on social media,” Orlovsky told The Post recently.

“At this point I thought social media was stupid, I had maybe 1,000 followers on Twitter. Three minutes later, I came to my senses. I paused my television, used the camera in my phone and just broke the play down. I went to bed and it went viral [on Instagram], and that was my moment to be like, ‘Huh, that’s how I can separate myself.’ ”

A regular on both ESPN and the NFL Network, Orlovsky will be in the booth for the Notre Dame-Iowa matchup on December 28 in the Camping World Bowl. If you’ve got nothing else planned for the day before the Lions’ season finale against the Packers, why not tune in and soak up more Dan O?

And now, on to the rest of today’s Notes:

• An interview by the voice of Lions Football Dan Miller with Fox 2 with cornerback Amani Oruwariye aired last night. Find out why playing football in Hockeytown is a great situation for the rookie.

• A fan of a different kind of wings, running back Bo Scarbrough was the subject of a profile from ESPN’s Mike Rothstein.

• Chris Burke from The Athletic believes a silver lining (subscription required) to this awful season is that Tracy Walker has turned out to be a fantastic safety in 2019.

• Justin Rogers at the Detroit News ranked his top 10 building blocks for the future. They are mostly who you are expecting, except two surprises on defense. Well, one of those would not surprise Chris Burke.

• This is both mesmerizing and horrifying (for Lions fans, anyway). As @DokiDokiCat points out, the Lions vanish from the rankings after 1990 (after the huge Mike Cofer sack seasons) and never come back:

• The Lions have a promotional discount on purchases through the end of December for some of their upcoming 2020 summer football camps.

• Benjamin Raven at mlive.com wrote about five wide receivers the Lions may consider drafting after this season is over.

• Special Teams OGs Matt Prater and Sam Martin want to let you know how you can help make some kids happy this holiday season: