John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reports that my old pal Jason Whitlock is on his way out at ESPN and likely headed back to Fox Sports.

Jason Whitlock is negotiating to leave ESPN before his contract ends officially, possibly as early as the next few weeks, according to several sources. Whitlock has had informal talks with Fox Sports that could see him return to work with former ESPN exec Jamie Horowitz, who currently is Fox Sports National Networks President. Neither ESPN nor Fox Sports would comment. Whitlock’s possible role at Fox Sports is not known, but if he makes the move, it is expected to include both a TV role on FS1 and regular contributions on FoxSports.com.

In the wake of the Undefeated debacle, there’s no reason for ESPN to keep Whitlock. It makes an awkward situation even more awkward.

The last time Whitlock left ESPN, he routinely blasted the network. In fact, in a podcast with the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir, he implored him and the paper to do more digging into ESPN.

However, Whitlock changed his tuned shortly thereafter when ESPN brought him in to oversee Undefeated. He and Bill Simmons even had a ESPN love fest during a podcast.

Now Whitlock is out the door again. It will be interesting to see if he goes out swinging.