Greg Olsen eventually cemented his status as one of the greatest tight ends in NFL history. He didn’t fully make that ascent until the Chicago Bears traded him.
Olsen spent his first four seasons with the Bears before getting shipped to the Carolina Panthers for a third-round pick in 2011. To the chagrin of Bears fans, he recorded 6,463 receiving yards and 39 touchdowns over nine seasons.
During a radio appearance on Chicago’s ESPN 1000, former Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz was asked about an accusation that he told the team to trade Olsen since he wouldn’t play him otherwise. Martz called the claim a “bold-faced lie.”
“That is a huge lie,” Martz said. “I didn’t know they did anything with him until after the fact. They didn’t tell me anything.”
He then jumped into an aside about the team failing to sign Marc Bulger as a backup for Jay Cutler. The Bears were 7-3 when Cutler broke his throwing hand, but they lost their next five games without him.
When pressed about not utilizing Olsen more as a receiver, Martz said they needed him to block because their offensive linemen “just weren’t good enough.”
In his lone season playing for Martz, Olsen caught 41 of 70 targets for 404 yards — his lowest tally from 2008 to 2016 — and five touchdowns. Yet he demonstrated his playmaking capabilities when scoring a 58-yard touchdown in their playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks.
Regardless of what Martz says, the Olsen trade will likely remain a sore subject for Bears fans.