Tom Brady has a champion in Greg Olsen.
Speaking to The Athletic in a new interview, Olsen — now in his first season with Fox Sports’ No. 2 team after Brady slid into the ex-tight end’s slot with the network’s top squad — expressed how his “success is not contingent” upon the seven-time Super Bowl champ, who made his highly anticipated debut as an NFL analyst last Sunday.
“I want him to do well. I want him to succeed. I want him to feel I’m a good teammate. It’s no different than if he came into the locker room when I was a player and we happened to play the same position,” Olsen, 39, said of Brady, 47.
“My success is not contingent upon Tom. Tom being really good doesn’t make me less good, and Tom being bad doesn’t make me better. Fox has two top teams, and that’s how I view it. But I’ve talked to [on-air partner] Joe [Davis] about this: I want people to think that Joe and I are the best crew on television. It doesn’t matter that we’re the ‘B’ crew.”
Olsen spent the past two seasons working alongside top play-by-play caller Kevin Burkhardt and even won a Sports Emmy in May for his efforts.
Brady signed a monster 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox before the 2022 NFL season, which was his last.
He took the season off in 2023, the same year he announced his NFL retirement, and made his big debut last week in the Cowboys’ dominant 33-17 win over the Browns.
Although Brady’s analysis drew mixed reactions, Joe Buck — who once occupied Fox’s top booth with Troy Aikman before their move to ESPN in 2022 — stressed patience.
“This is a hard job, and we all do our piece of it,” Buck said Monday on “The Michael Kay Show.” “We all have to be able to settle in; know what you need to know. I talked to him on Friday, and I don’t think anybody’s put in more work into being prepared for his first broadcast than Tom did. And now, you have to go forward and settle in. It’s grossly unfair that everybody wants to weigh in after five seconds. That’s not the way it works.”
RedZone host Scott Hanson even backtracked his comments about Brady after saying the future Hall of Famer has to “get more excited than that in the booth.”
“This was unfair & inconsiderate by me. Yes, I was saying it tongue in cheek – but I didn’t calculate how it may come across,” the NFL Network personality wrote last week on X. “@TomBrady, I apologize. I promise I am rooting you on in this new venture!”
Olsen, who told The Athletic he and Brady have had more “personal” discussions “over the last six or seven months,” added he’s happy to be a source of support amid a seismic career shift.
“I told him, ‘Dude, I’m here to help in whatever way I can. I haven’t been doing this for 20 years, but more so than any of the other guys in the industry to a degree, I understand the transition that you’re making because it’s the same transition that I did.’ You go straight from playing to all of a sudden you’re calling the Super Bowl and the top games of the week. I think I have a perspective that he can rely on,” Olsen said.
Brady and Burkhardt will be on the call for the Cowboys-Saints matchup in Week 2.
