Report Of Greg Olsen Taking ESPN Job “Unfounded”

Update:

Joe Person reports that the speculation that Greg Olsen is leaving Panthers for the Monday Night Football job at ESPN is “unfounded.”

Person explains that both ESPN and Fox made previous offers to Olsen, but not anything that would convince him to retire from the NFL. According to Person, ESPN could still try to convince him otherwise, but nothing is imminent.

Here’s a tweet from Olsen following the earlier news:

Reading twitter like… pic.twitter.com/5E2Nm4ZNBR

— Greg Olsen (@gregolsen88) March 11, 2019

Sheena Quick is reporting that Panthers TE Greg Olsen is taking a job at ESPN, despite the expectation that he would return to Panthers.

Panthers HC Ron Rivera said at the Combine that Olsen told him he wants to keep playing football, but Quick mentions that this was before Jason Witten decided to return to the Cowboys. 

Quick does add that this news isn’t 100 percent confirmed just yet. 

Olsen ruptured his plantar fascia back in December and was later placed on injured reserve.

Retirement has come up as a possibility for Olsen, who has drawn interest from networks as an analyst in recent years, so this is certainly something to watch in the coming week/months.

Olsen, 33, is a former first-round pick of the Bears back in 2007. He played four years for Chicago before he was traded to the Panthers in 2011.

Olsen was in the final year of a four-year, $27.75 million contract and is set to make a base salary of $1.9 million for the 2019 season to go along with a $1 million roster bonus and a workout bonus of $500,000.

In 2018, Olsen appeared in nine games for the Panthers and caught 27 passes for 291 yards receiving and four touchdowns.