This past year, FOX NFL lead color commentator Greg Olson became one of the few people that get to play in one Super Bowl and then be in the broadcast booth for another. Even though being in the booth was a new experience for Olsen, it was nothing compared to when he was with the Carolina Panthers playing in Super Bowl 50.
Olsen was a guest on the Pardon My Take podcast and he said that it was a lifelong dream for him to play in the Super Bowl and until you actually get to the big game, you cannot understand the experience.
“I had never been there. It was a career-long journey. I had been close. My last year with the Bears, we lost to the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. I had gotten close, I had played in some big playoff games. People can prepare you all they want for what playing in the Super Bowl is like, but until you are out there, it really is a surreal moment…It’s hard to explain.”
As for the broadcast experience, the former tight end said that once the game got started, it felt just like calling any other game for himself and partner Kevin Burkhardt.
“You are not the one on the field. You’re just reacting to what’s going on. The winner and loser had no bearing on me. The role of the game was obviously a lot different. I felt very comfortable once the ball got kicked off. It felt very normal standing up in the booth with Kevin kind of calling it the way we had all year.”
With his first season as the lead color commentator in the booth, Olsen mentioned he tries not to go back and critique his own broadcast.
“I would say the biggest reason that I don’t is after every game, it is no different than as a player. You replay every game. I don’t want to get into the habit of where I watch it post, I second-guess everything I did in real-time and then the next week, I have that recall in my head and I second-guess myself. I want it to be natural. I want whatever comes out to come out and when it’s over, it’s over. I don’t want to cloud the real-time decision-making that goes on calling a game by being like Johnny Monday Morning quarterback.”
