Greg Olsen discusses uncertain Fox future with Tom Brady on deck

Retired tight end Greg Olsen shared during a chat with Joseph Person and Richard Deitsch of The Athletic on Tuesday that he still wants to call the biggest games of NFL seasons even though he's losing his spot as Fox's lead analyst to living legend Tom Brady later this year. 

"It’s hard to predict how all that plays out," Olsen acknowledged. "But my end goal is to call premiere games at the top of the ladder and that pursuit won’t change regardless of what happens this next year with my current role." 

Brady and Fox agreed to a 10-year deal reportedly worth $375M after the 2021 campaign, and he confirmed on Tuesday he has already practiced calling NFL games with lead play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt at the Fox studios as the seven-time Super Bowl champion prepares to join the network next season. 

While it was reported over the weekend that Olsen is likely "stuck" serving as Fox's No. 2 game analyst for at least the 2024 campaign, a Fox Sports spokesperson told Deitsch on Sunday that the network's future assignments will be revealed at a later time. 

"That’s the way it looks, from everything we’ve been told and that’s the way it’s been trending," Olsen told The Athletic about losing his chair to Brady. "We’ve been planning for that for two years. We knew when we took the job that Brady was there whenever he was going to decide to come." 

Brady is heading to Fox at a time when no other lead NFL analyst positions are available. With that said, Olsen will turn just 39 years old in March, and there continue to be questions about Brady's long-term commitment to Fox considering he wants to eventually become a limited partner of the Las Vegas Raiders.

"Fox (decision-makers) were the ones that believed in me from the beginning," Olsen added on Tuesday. "They gave me my first opportunities to do this when I was still playing back in 2017 on a bye week. No one was adamant about my future in this business as much as Fox was. I’ll forever be grateful for that." 

Also on Tuesday, Ben Koo of Awful Announcing wrote that Olsen's best short-term option likely involves accepting a demotion to Fox's No. 2 booth for a season. Such a scenario could result in Olsen linking back up with Burkhardt sooner rather than later if Brady flops as a broadcaster or experiences a change of heart regarding his post-playing plans.