Dan Fouts’ second career in football has been anything but a three-and-out even if it may end with a turnover on downs. With his contract as the No. 2 analyst on CBS coverage of NFL games expiring, the network isn’t bringing him back this fall and in the process perhaps has given Jay Cutler a big break.

What’s happening with Dan Fouts on TV?

At 68 years old and with networks always chasing more recently retired quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Jay Cutler as their NFL game analysts, Dan Fouts doesn’t have many options if he wants to continue working.

The New York Post broke the news that Dan Fouts isn’t being offered a new contract by CBS to do color commentary on NFL games for the upcoming season. Fouts landed at the network in 1988 after retiring and left in 1994 but returned in 2008.

His career has seen Fouts work NFL or college games at CBS, ABC, and ESPN. He’s also mixed in radio work and was the sports anchor for a time at a San Francisco TV station.

Fouts was never part of the No. 1 announcing team at CBS, but he was in the ABC booth with Al Michaels and Dennis Miller for Monday Night Football in 2000 and 2001. He followed that with four seasons of doing college games alongside announcing icon Keith Jackson.

Most recently, Fouts and Ian Eagle were the No. 2 CBS broadcasting team behind Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback who just received a huge contract extension. Had he stayed, Fouts would have been in line to handle the extra wildcard playoff game the network picked up after NFL owners expanded the playoff fields to seven teams per conference.

Dan Fouts ran one of the great NFL offenses

Dan Fouts’ run as a broadcaster has been impressive for its duration but most football fans will first and foremost remember him as the quarterback who operated the Air Coryell offense of the San Diego Chargers in a career that ended with induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He spent all 15 of his NFL seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Fouts was at his absolute best from 1979 to 1983, when the led the NFL in passing yards per game each season. He threw 124 touchdown passes and went 44-23 in that span and was credited with engineering fourth-quarter comebacks in each of the Chargers’ three playoff wins.

Fouts was the first NFL quarterback to throw for 4,000 or more yards in three straight seasons and got San Diego to a pair of AFC Championship Games. He was selected to the NFL All-Decade Team for the 1980s.

Fouts’ name made the news earlier in the week when Fox studio analyst Terry Bradshaw tabbed him has one of several quarterbacks he rated higher than Tom Brady.

Jay Cutler stands to benefit from the news

Placing Dan Fouts on the television version of waivers opens a seat in the CBS booth alongside Ian Eagle. The newspaper report said Fox color analyst Charles Davis agreed to change networks, which opens up his old job.

That raises the possibility that Jay Cutler could beat the odds and finally step into the booth at Fox. Cutler signed with that network once before but left in August 2017 without having worked a game when the Miami Dolphins recruited him as a replacement for the injured Ryan Tannehill.

Cutler has been biding time on his wife’s reality TV show and said he wants to get back into football as a game analyst. Fox appears to have a vacancy now, so it might happen.