Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen called his revised contract a "win-win" Thursday night, but he also said there is no way to know yet whether the Panthers themselves will be winners in 2017.
"You never really know until you get to the real season," Olsen said after the Panthers ended their preseason at 2-2 after a 17-14 loss to Pittsburgh. "These are kind of different scenarios with people playing and not playing. When we have our full squad next weekend, we will find out a lot more about us."
The Panthers certainly know what they have in Olsen, 32, the sure-handed tight end who is the first at his position in NFL history to record 1,000 receiving yards in three straight seasons. Olsen believed that he had outplayed his contract with those numbers, but he still has two years left on the three-year, $22.5 million deal he signed in 2015.
Interim general manager Marty Hurney compromised this week by keeping the deal in place but adding $2 million worth of performance-based incentives to Olsen's contract for things like having another 1,000-yard season, hitting benchmarks in receptions and average yards per catch and being named to a postseason all-NFL team.
"I'm very appreciative of the team's handling of the situation," Olsen said. "It was very fair to both sides. Obviously I feel very respected by the fact that they recognize that there was something that could be done, it was just a matter of finding out what that was for both sides. I think at the end of the day we found a good solution to it, and I think it's a win-win for everybody."
Olsen said he thought all the new incentives were reachable because "they are all things that I have done before," although adding that earning the extra money would not be his "No. 1 goal."
