Greg Olsen Compares Himself to Mike Ditka

Part of Jerry Angelo’s press conference today dealt with the Greg Olsen trade.  First, Jerry confirmed a lot of unconfirmed reports that Olsen campaigned for a trade when Mike Martz was hired last offseason:

"On Sunday night, after he finished hashing through the decision to move on from center Olin Kreutz, Angelo went ahead and admitted that not only did Olsen seek to be traded shortly after Mike Martz was hired as offensive coordinator, he “came at me hard.”“I understood it,” Angelo said. “I told him I’d think about it. Greg is a great kid, works his tail off. I said, ‘Greg, no, I don’t see that being in our best interest.’ Again, it’s about the team. And I said, that’s going to hurt our football team. I said, ‘You’re going to have to suck it up, just do your job. You’ve got a contract, we’ve paid you well for your services,’ and he is a professional and he took the high road. I respect that.”"

This offseason, Jerry basically told Olsen that the Bears didn’t intend on extending him and he wasn’t part of their long term plans (hey, that sounds familiar), leading to this nugget:

"“This year was different,” Angelo said. “We’re really not looking for Kellen Winslow. We’re looking for Mike Ditka. So, the tight ends we have now really fit more the profile we want for our offense. It’s no more than that."

Sean Jensen posted that quote to his Twitter feed and Greg Olsen responded:

Where do I begin?  First, the closest Greg Olsen will get to Mike Ditka is if he goes out and paints himself orange and grows a mustache.  I like Greg, but he doesn’t have the toughness or heart of Da Coach from his playing days.  If he did, maybe he would have lived up to his lofty draft status.

As for the Bears clueless GM, Ditka is a Hall of Fame tight end for revolutionizing the tight end position and making it a pass catching threat, where it had previously been primarily a blocking position.  As the GM of the Bears, I would have thought that Jerry would understand that.  Then again…

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