Even though Tom Brady is ousting Greg Olsen from Fox Sports’ top NFL broadcasting booth, he still reached out for Olsen’s advice as his replacement.
Olsen, who is now a part of the network’s second-hand duo with Joe Davis, told USA Today on Friday that he spoke with the future Hall of Famer a couple of weeks ago.
“He [Brady] was just kind of picking my brain about the prep and the industry and what to expect and whatnot,” Olsen said. “So, I don’t know. Every guy has their own journey in sports broadcasting. I think everyone thinks it’s easy.
“I think everyone thinks getting up there and calling a live football game for three hours off the cuff, and being able to get in, get out, deal with the flow of the game, the players, the schemes, the terminology — there’s a lot going on during a game, and I think some guys really transition to it well and take to it pretty quickly. And other guys haven’t. We’ve seen a mixed bag of results over the last couple of years.”
However, given the change of positions among the broadcasting crew, Olsen, who was a three-time Pro Bowl tight end, said he doesn’t believe there is any “real correlation” between a successful player to a successful broadcaster.
“So, obviously, his playing career and his resume and whatnot is an all-timer. So, you know, we’ll see how the year goes,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any real correlation between being a great player or an average player and how that correlates to being a great broadcaster or an average broadcaster. I think we’ve seen samples on both ends of that spectrum. So, we’ll see how it all plays out.”
This season, Tom Brady will be joining Kevin Burkhardt as the color commentator under a huge 10-year, $375 million contract that he agreed to after taking a gap year after his final NFL season with the Buccaneers in 2022.
He announced his retirement for the second time in February 2023.
The network signed Olsen in 2021 and he worked with Burkhardt on the No. 2 team that season and they were later bumped up after Joe Buck and Troy Aikman left for “Monday Night Football” on ESPN.
Olsen has previously worked with his new partner, Davis, for Fox during the MLB postseason that Burkhardt was absent.
