Greg Olsen has been wheeling his way around the locker room on a knee scooter the past two weeks as he recovers from his second foot surgery in 16 months – even while he looks injured, he still acts the same way, busting Kyle Allen’s chops about whether his girlfriend will be at the game on Sunday, hugging Thomas Davis or holding court over a gaggle of reporters wearing one of his signature beanies front of his locker as he make jokes about his personal fashion.

But while he may look like the same Greg Olsen, things are quite different.

The question last year was when he might be able to come back from a fractured fifth metatarsal – the question surrounding the three-time Pro Bowler who hadn’t missed a game in five seasons before suffering the break in Week 2 of 2017 and then rebreaking the same bone in Week 1 of this season is now not when, but if he’ll be back in a Panthers uniform next season – and while he thinks he still has plenty of football left to play, that’s not a question he’s quite ready to answer – because it’s not entirely up to him.

“I still feel like I can play at a high level – obviously, I said that before the season too and it didn’t exactly work out,” said Olsen. “It’s been a frustrating two years, there’s no question about it. We’ve got to see, there’s a lot of other people that have a lot of say in what they feel my future is here.”

“I still enjoy playing, I still know I can play – that decision’s not always up to me. We’ll let the chips kind of fall where they may. At the end of the season [I’ll] speak with the team, see what their plan is, see what the future of the organization [is], see where we’re headed and there are so many factors right now that are in play that it’s not a matter of whether I want to or not as much as whether or not that’s in the cards.”

While Olsen’s surgery is different than the one he had last year – in 2017, they were trying for a quick fix to get him back on the field to finish out the season, but this surgery was a screw replacement and bone graft, something that by all accounts is more of a permanent solution – it will still require a three to four month recovery time, which fits within with the timeline of the NFL offseason.

“We have a lot of time, we have the ability – unlike last year where we were kind of in a race against the clock to make that eight-week window – you’re probably talking three [or] four months on this one, so that still has plenty of time taking us into what would be OTAs,” said Olsen, who will turn 34 in March. “That’s not really my main concern as much as just getting this thing fixed.”

“That sounds good – that would be fun again to play like I’m used to playing without having pain and discomfort and treatment and surgeries and rehab and – it’s exhausting.”

The tight end flirted briefly during the last offseason with leaving the field for the broadcast booth; a player of his caliber with a quick wit and even sharper tongue that’s not afraid to speak his mind and can communicate his knowledge and passion for the game so easily is going to be successful in front of the mic; he’s even tested his mettle as an analyst in the booth for FOX during the Panthers’ bye week during 2017 – but ultimately, after auditioning for the analyst role that eventually went to Jason Witten, signed a two-year extension with the Panthers that will pay him $17.1m over the next two seasons.

Olsen’s cap hit in 2019 will be $7.1m – if the Panthers were to release him, that dead cap hit would be $7.4m; on a team that is going to have holes on both sides of the ball that they need to fill, money will certainly be a factor in the decision to keep a player that has been a fixture on the Carolina sidelines since coming to the team in 2011.

If Olsen is fully healthy for the first time since suffering the injury in Week 1, Ron Rivera is excited to see what he can do for the Panthers on the field.

“I believe the guy has good football left; I believe the guy can help us, I really do,” said Rivera. “He was starting to come back again and it was exciting to watch him – especially in how we do and how we do it.”

Whether or not Olsen can help the Panthers isn’t the question – it’s a question of whether or not he’ll get the chance.

Josh Klein on Twitter
Josh Klein
Editor-In-Chief at The Riot Report
Josh Klein is Editor-In-Chief of The Riot Report. His favorite Panther of all time is Chad Cota and he once AIM chatted with Kevin Greene. Follow Josh on Twitter @joshkleinrules.