The Rich Eisen Show was getting ready to welcome FOX analyst Greg Olsen to their show yesterday. The host made quite a show about it all, taking a dig at Olsen for taking heat for commenting on Malik Nabers during the Giants-Eagles games. Rich Eisen jokingly exaggerated, sitting up straight and presentable, wanting to “make sure that my body language is okay here.”
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“What do you think, Greg?” Eisen asked.
“You look great,” Olsen replied earnestly. When Eisen said that he just wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, Olsen steered clear.
“I don’t know what you guys were even talking about,” he continued. “Did something happen? Yeah, I’m doing great. Yeah, doing great. It’s been an interesting week.”
Olsen tried to play it cool as if the controversy regarding his comments on Malik Nabers didn’t happen. Behind that relaxed act sits a dispute he has refused to drop.
Nabers took offense at the analyst’s assessment of his body language, particularly with the latter calling the WR a “bad teammate.” Olsen also responded to the backlash, saying his words were taken out of context by the media.
His answer came on Monday, November 9, in a post on X ;the actual clip of his commentary attached.
“Since people are going to just make up quotes and put words [sic] in my mouth, here were my comments on Malik Nabers,” Olsen wrote. “At no point did we [himself and co-commentator Joe Davis] ever say he was a bad teammate.” Olsen continued. He also said it was a “flat-out lie.”
Malik Nabers was unhappy during the Giants-Eagles clash; there’s no two ways about that. At one point, he slammed his helmet on the sideline rack, and also knocked himself in the head for dropping an important touchdown pass. However, the highlight of the controversy is Olsen’s comments on Nabers not celebrating an Isaiah Likely touchdown.
“There is a very fine line between being demanding, being a competitor, and all those great things. That’s great,” Olsen said on the FOX broadcast. “It just can never cross that it feels like it takes away from the success of your teammate. So when your teammate catches a wide-open touchdown, you need to be the happiest guy on the field. You can’t still be worried about your targets. That’s the fine line. He’s a talented young, really good player. He’s just got to keep it in check.”
Yes, Olsen never said Malike Nabers was a “bad” teammate. But the criticism still affected Nabers.
Nabers heard something harsher. He first fired back online, and then via the press.
“I just feel like the narrative on me is always all the bad body language things that people have been saying about me, but as far as that is, if it’s a problem with anybody, the cameras can stay off me,” Nabers said during a recent press conference. “The thing was about not telling the world something that’s not me. I’m going to speak up for myself all the time because there’s nobody else that’s going to be able to speak up for me.
“I feel like that was just a lie, attacking my character as a football player and as a teammate. As I said, I’ve never been on a team where anyone has called me a bad teammate that I know of.”
The box score hints at why his mood was sour. Nabers caught five of eight targets for 43 yards, his longest going for 22 yards. He never found the end zone, and that dropped touchdown also put the Giants on the back foot. The team was clinging to a 13-8 lead at the time, and could have gone 20-8 had Nabers caught the pass from J.J. McCarthy. They had to eventually settle for a field goal.
Nabers has 53 catches and two touchdowns through eight games, and has tallied 648 receiving yards. Next up is a Thursday game against the Washington Commanders, and everyone will be watching how he handles the spotlight.