Greg Olsen never criticized Tom Brady for surpᴀssing him on the Fox Sports depth chart. Regardless, the former Carolina Panthers тιԍнт end and current Fox color commentator felt the need to clarify their relationship ahead of Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, where Brady – and not Olsen – will be calling the action for Fox.

‘I know my comments last week kind of took on a crazy storm,’ Olsen admitted to NFL Network on Thursday. 

‘I actually talked to Tom. I’ve talked to Tom regularly throughout the season. We’ve gotten to know each other really well, I have a ton of respect for him, which goes without saying as a player. But I’ve really enjoyed getting to know him as a guy since he joined Fox.’

As the 39-year-old Olsen told The Athletic in an eye-opening Q&A last month, he doesn’t resent Brady after being pᴀssed over by the seven-time Super Bowl champion. But he does miss working the NFL’s biggest games, like the Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl he called two years ago in Miami.

‘I don’t think resentment’s probably accurate,’ Olsen told The Athletic. ‘But I also think it’s not too far off if I’m being honest.’

But Olsen stopped well short of criticizing Brady, who is in the first year of a reported 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox.

Greg Olsen speaks on SiriusXM at Super Bowl LIX on Wednesday in New Orleans 

Tom Brady will be calling his first Super Bowl on Sunday at the Superdome in New Orleans 

Read More Tom Brady mercilessly trolled by NFL fans for on-air mistake as they call for him to be replaced

‘This whole narrative of like, ‘I hate watching him call games’ and all that is not true,’ Olsen told NFL Network. ‘So here I am, on national TV, setting the record…I like Tom…I try to help him, I answer questions to the best I can. I want to see him do well, I want to see him and [play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt] and EA [Erin Andrews] and Tom Rinaldi have a great broadcast, I don’t have any personal animosity.’

Olsen was in the booth a few years ago when the Kansas City Chiefs first played the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl .

Now, with the two teams meeting again on Sunday, he will again be sidelined, just as he was during the NFC Championship on Sunday in Philly.

‘It’s very hard now to watch the games and just sit back and watch,’ Olsen told The Athletic last month.

Brady has taken significant criticism in his first year alongside Burkhardt in the Fox booth. Most recently he was roasted for a mistake he made during the NFC Wild Card game between the Eagles and the Green Bay Packers.

With time winding down in the first half, and the Eagles up 10-0, Brady decided to praise a play call from Philadelphia. Unfortunately for him, he had a bit of a slip of the tongue and said the name of the baseball team from the City of Brotherly Love, rather than the football team.

‘[You have] three timeouts, so you’d have a couple plays. But I like this call by the Phillies… excuse me, by Philly,’ Brady said on the air.

Brady also mixed up the name of Packers running back Josh Jacobs – calling him Brandon Jacobs instead.

Brandon Jacobs is a retired NFL halfback, who was best known for winning two Super Bowls with the New York Giants – beating Brady both times.

Fans on social media eviscerated Brady, saying that he and Burkhardt should be replaced by the ‘No. 2’ Fox broadcast team of Joe Davis and Olsen.

The ‘No. 2’ team of Davis/Olsen was voted the Best NFL Broadcast Team of 2024 in a poll of over 2,400 fans conducted by sports media site Awful Announcing. Burkhardt/Brady came 14th out of 25 broadcast teams.

‘Maybe Brady’s not cut out for broadcasting,’ wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter.

A few weeks earlier Brady was ripped for referring to Steelers running back Najee Harris as Najeh Davenport. While the latter did play the position for Pittsburgh, he had not done so since 2008.

‘Brady regressed this week,’ The Athletic’s sports media columnist Andrew Marchand wrote on X. ‘No extra insight all day. He said ”chunks” a thousand times.’

Fans raked Brady over the coals, saying he should be replaced by Fox No. 2 man Greg Olsen

Marchand was not alone in his ᴀssessment.

‘Tom Brady replacing Greg Olsen in the booth is like Mac Jones replacing Brady in New England,’ said USA Today’s Safid Deen, referring to Brady’s doomed replacement with the Patriots.

‘Having to listen to Tom Brady makes this even more difficult,’ said Jeff Hartman, a podcast host on the Steel Curtain Network.

‘If FOX does not discharge Brady after this season, some respect will be lost,’ former MLB writer Jed Weisberger wrote. ‘He is absolutely horrendous as an analyst and has no ability to do this job. Makes me wish I was still writing national media. Worst ever.’

However, Marchand struck a different tone during the NFC Championship: ‘Brady is having his best game.’

As for Brady’s future in the booth, his agent Don Yee denied reports the ex-QB could quit announcing to focus on the Las Vegas Raiders full time after being approved as a minority owner of the team last year.

‘Tom has had a tremendous amount of fun working with Fox this year, and he’s really excited about the future with Fox and his growth on their team,’ Yee told Sports Business Journal. ‘And this year was the first year of a long relationship.’