Greg Olsen’s Marvelous Rise from the Playing Field to the Broadcast Booth
Fox Sports
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PSF) - “Welcome to the NFC Championship game between the San Fransisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles, I’m Joe Buck, that’s the Hall of Famer Troy Aikman…”
Nope, that’s not it. Those are not the guys who are calling this year’s NFC Championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and San Fransisco 49ers. Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen are calling the game.
As millions of Americans across the country will be turning their devices on to watch the championship game between the 49ers and Eagles, it very well may come as a surprise to them that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman won’t be on the call when the time for kickoff doesn’t roll around. Instead, they will soon find out that Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen will be on the call for the contest instead. After Buck and Aikman called last year’s NFC Championship game, they packed up their bags and headed to ESPN where they happily accepted a five-year contract worth $155M as Burkhardt and Olsen now find themselves filling their shoes in the broadcast booth this time around and will call their first conference championship game together as a duo.
Burkhardt is well beyond certified and qualified for the lead play-by-play role as he is very well experienced and a proven sportscaster, while Olsen however is only in his second full-time season as part of the NFL on FOX team as the color analyst.
Many questioned what Olsen would do after his playing days on the field would ultimately conclude and whether the new duo of Burkhardt and Olsen would be as successful as the legacy that Buck and Aikman left behind at FOX. Like Olsen’s career, both his decision to join FOX as a color commentator and tenure so far with Burkhardt as his Robin has turned out to be as if he were still hauling in touchdown passes from his former longtime quarterback Cam Newton. Olsen and Burkhardt now the #1 team for the NFL on FOX.
This past week, rumors have surfaced that if Tom Brady were to retire this offseason, he would take Olsen’s spot as the top color commentator for the NFL on FOX team as last May Brady inked a 10-year deal with Fox Sports for $375M to be a lead NFL analyst on-air. Olsen had this to say on the matter:
“If Brady ends up retiring and coming…and that’s how everything unfolds, it sucks…But at the end of the day, I’m a big boy. I know what I signed up for. I took a chance on myself. I rolled the dice. Let’s see how it plays out.”
“Whatever happens in the offseason, listen, I hope Brady signs a five-year deal with [an NFL team]. I’ll be the first guy there. I’ll give ‘em some cap room to make it work.”
This is what Burkhardt had to say in response:
“Greg’s my dude, I’ve known him for a long time. We got along really, really well. I love the guy. But in a business sense, when this all happened, obviously, I texted with Tom and that was it. That was the last time I texted with him because quite honestly I’ve got enough to do right now. I can’t be thinking about Tom Brady when the next two games are the most important of my personal career.”
It seems as if Brady is going to leave Tampa Bay and sign with another team this offseason, after getting bounced from the playoffs by the Dallas Cowboys in the wildcard round. Whatever ends up happening between Olsen and Brady, both will certainly keep competing to the best of their abilities in their own respective fields.
As Olsen has now ascended himself as one of FOX’s best NFL color commentator in only two years, he will look to keep his insightful and very informative analysis going for the NFL world to see and hear on display this weekend in Philadelphia. In a few weeks, he will get the opportunity to call Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona.
