Greg Olsen was set up for the perfect career after football.
The former star tight end was quickly climbing the ranks as a color analyst at FOX Sports and he was positioning himself to be the No. 1 analyst. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman went from FOX to ESPN and it left the role open, alongside Kevin Burkhardt.
Olsen was in contention to become the lead guy, before the announcement came of Tom Brady taking a massive deal following his playing career. Brady signed a 10-year deal worth $375 million to be the top guy.
On the the “Pardon My Take” podcast, Olsen discussed the deal with Brady and he explains his thoughts on it.
“If they would have hired someone – all along, we thought we were in the mix and we had good dialogue and obviously they weren’t going to tell us exactly what was going on behind the scenes,” Olsen said, transcribed by WEEI. “We had heard the same rumors everybody else did and we were trying to make sense of it all. When the news came, it was like you just said. If it was someone else, like if I got jumped by someone else, sure, I would’ve wanted to burn the city to the ground, right? I would have been pissed and whatever.
“But when you lose out on Tom Brady, it’s like this sucks, at least he doesn’t take the job now, maybe I can have my time in the sun and keep his seat warm until he gets there. But yeah, if you’re going to lose, at least lose to him. I can at least live with the only person in the world who beat me out was Tom Brady. I can live with that.”
That’s a pretty reasonable reaction — it’s difficult to get too mad when the only person who beats you is Brady.
