FOX Sports’ Greg Olsen Talks Eagles, Rams, NFL Draft & More with Rich

Sean McVay's restrained body language at the Ty Simpson press conference was a courtesy to Matthew Stafford, Greg Olsen argued on The Rich Eisen Show. Pounding the table for a rookie quarterback while the reigning MVP sits a chair away 'could be seen as a jab to Stafford,' Olsen said, and McVay, in his read, was deliberately dialing it back out of respect.

The Rams, Olsen reasoned, do not expect to be drafting in the top half of the first round again any time soon. They like the roster. They like Stafford. They drafted Simpson at 13 anyway because, as the Packers did with Jordan Love behind Aaron Rodgers, behind Brett Favre, sometimes you take the quarterback when the quarterback is there. Rich pushed back on the math. The Rams, he reminded Olsen, 'don't play rookies,' so any first-round pick has to be Jared Verse to see the field, and Reuben Bane or Makai Lemon would have looked good at 13.

Olsen, on the show in support of the Relax It's A Blood Test prostate cancer screening campaign, then walked through what he called one of the bigger mysteries in the league: the Eagles and A.J. Brown. With Lemon drafted, Dontavion Wicks acquired and Hollywood Brown signed, the writing is on the wall. 'You better have a really good plan in place before you just letting great players go out the door,' Olsen said. He still trusts Howie Roseman, whom he called 'a top two personnel guy in the entire league.'

New offensive coordinator Sean Mannion, Olsen said, will pull Jalen Hurts off the shotgun and into a Shanahan-LaFleur under-center play action system. The Eagles have already pulled back on Hurts as a designed runner, so 'the benefits of sitting in shotgun all day long have been diminished,' he said. Visually, the offense will look different.

On the leaguewide tight end gold rush, Olsen offered the cleanest explanation of the trend yet. When he came into the league, he said, tight ends were 'converted receivers' and converted basketball players and converted quarterbacks. Now 'kids grow up playing tight end.' Defenses went small and started playing deep coverage, so offenses got bigger to run at them. Then the defenses matched the size, and now, out of twelve and thirteen personnel, 'Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Puka Nacua and all these receivers' feast in the pass game. Rich noted the Eagles drafted Eli Stalder to pair with Dallas Goedert. The cat-and-mouse, Olsen said, is the league.