Chicago Bears star campaigns for head coaching gig with his former team

First of all, we’ll say the quiet part out loud: Greg Olsen is a better broadcaster than Tom Brady. Like, way better.

When CBS hired Brady as their go-to color announcer in 2022, they demoted Olsen—a former Chicago Bear tight end and potential future Hall of Famer who was about two years away from hitting Tony Romo-level announcing awesomeness—thus diminishing the fun-factor of their top telecasts by about 47.2%. Maybe even 47.3%.

Second of all, few, if anybody ever looked at Greg Olsen and thought, “There’s the next Chicago Bears head coach!”

Except for Greg Olsen.

Olsen’s Surprise Pitch for the Bears Sidelines

During an appearance on ESPN’s Waddle & Silvy show earlier this week, the gregarious 39-year-old unashamedly stumped for a job on the Bears sidelines, telling Tom Waddle:

“Every year head coaches, coordinators, position coaches get turned around this NFL cycle and everyone's hired off experience. [T]hen how come all these experienced guys end up having to find new jobs, right? If experience was everything, no one would ever get fired because all these guys have been doing this for a long time. I think sometimes the NFL and these teams need to take a step back and say, okay, [are] there some fresh ideas out there? I've had a really unique perspective from this chair about what goes into winning in the NFL, combined with 14 years of playing and being in locker rooms and being on teams in the Super Bowl and being on teams that didn't make the playoffs and understanding why certain teams took different paths.”

"I would put my experience in NFL circles up with anybody for the last 20 years"

Greg Olsen tells @WaddleandSilvy and @TWaddle87 that he would be would consider a front office or coaching role with the Bears

Listen to the full show on the ESPN Chicago app:… pic.twitter.com/ek0EOaGORj
— ESPN Chicago (@ESPN1000) January 16, 2025

He then noted that, “The [Bears owners] McCaskeys have my number.”

Why Olsen is a Perfect Fit for the Bears

Based on his insightful on-air work, it’s clear that Olsen has a fantastic football mind, and as a former player—and a relatively recently-retired one at that—the charismatic University of Miami product would potentially be able to better communicate with a team than a coaching lifer like Mike McCarthy or Todd Monken.

Olsen’s NBA Counterpart?

And while it’s more of an NBA thing than an NFL thing, young former players (and successful color commentators) can thrive on the sidelines, even without any previous head coaching experience, current Los Angeles Lakers coach J.J. Redick being the perfect comp.

Could CBS Promote Olsen Back to the Top Booth?

Finally, it bears mention that at the beginning of the interview, the show's host theorized the NFL might make Tom Brady choose between "consulting" with the Las Vegas Raiders (let's be honest, here: he's running the joint) and keeping his television job, at which point, Brady would roll with the black-and-silver, after which CBS could promote Olsen back to his rightful spot on the network’s top announcing team.

All of which means that one way or the other, we might be seeing and/or hearing a whole lot more from Greg Olsen. As well we should.