Greg Olsen: Production meetings only yield ‘one or two nuggets’ per broadcast

Greg Olsen was asked about Tom Brady. So he answered about Tom Brady — again.

On Wednesday’s episode of Pardon My Take, Olsen addressed production meetings and how much NFL teams actually share with broadcasters. It’s a topic that keeps resurfacing due to Brady’s ownership stake in the Raiders and questions about whether it creates a conflict of interest when he’s calling games involving other teams.

“It depends on who you talk to,” Olsen said when asked what teams tell broadcasters in these meetings. “There are some coaches where we know going into the meeting that we only have to talk to them. They’re going to be very forthright. They’re going to be very honest. They’re going to tell us exactly what the matchups are, exactly what the thought processes are.”

Other teams take a completely different approach.

“There are some teams and some coaches who tell you nothing,” Olsen continued. “And it’s not personal. It’s just their style. It’s their nature. And they don’t offer anything outside of very coach-speak. It’s almost more like a press conference, right? ‘We gotta protect the ball. We gotta do a better job on third down. We gotta play hard. The other team is so good. This is a huge challenge.’ And then you hang up and say, ‘I could’ve gotten this from their press conference.'”

So teams were already operating at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to sharing information, long before Brady became part of the equation.

As for Brady specifically, Olsen doesn’t seem concerned about teams being more guarded.

“Every team, it’s up to them,” he said. “In regards to Tom, and I’ve said this now a few times, I have no problems with it. However a team wants to handle their production meetings with me, with them, the situation is entirely up to them. Whatever they see fit that they think protects their information, they have every right to.”

But the most revealing part of Olsen’s comments might be what he said about the actual value of these meetings.

“There’s one or two nuggets from every production meeting — on average — that really ever make a broadcast,” Olsen later added.

According to Olsen, the meetings that have generated so much controversy don’t produce much usable information anyway.

Whether that changes how people view the Brady situation depends on the beholder’s perspective. Some will argue that any access to team information creates an unfair advantage, especially when certain coaches are more forthcoming than others. Others might see Olsen’s comments as evidence that the competitive concerns are overblown.

What’s clear is that teams already had vastly different approaches to these meetings. Some coaches will tell you everything regardless of who’s asking. Others stick to generic talking points irrespective of the circumstances. Brady’s involvement doesn’t appear to have significantly altered that dynamic, if at all.