If Greg Olsen decides to hang up the cleats and head to the TV booth after this season, he's already got practice giving an honest assessment of the team he's covering.
Following the Carolina Panthers38-6 blowout loss to the Indianapolis Colts, the team's seventh straight defeat, Olsen laid into the entire operation.
"Right now I'm not sure what our plan is. I think we want to win now, but we want to build for the future," Olsen said, via the Charlotte Observer. "It's just a really tough way to operate right now."
Olsen wasn't done.
"Players are underperforming, I think it's right now a very collective failure, organizational failure. Fans deserve better," he said. "A lot of guys in this locker room deserve better. Coaches that have been around here deserve better. It's just been an overall failure, I think is the best way to put it."
If this is the end for Olsen in Carolina after nine seasons, he's going out in a blaze of glory. The 34-year-old could walk right into a TV booth after the season, continue his career elsewhere, or be brought back by a new coaching staff at an $11.8 million cap hit (or take a pay cut).
The Panthers fired coach Ron Rivera three weeks ago. Interim coach Perry Fewell took over, and the embarrassing losses have mounted.
Sunday's blowout defeat came with rookie Will Grier under center behind an offensive line that couldn't block traffic with a bulldozer. The third-round pick threw three interceptions, and outside of short passes to Christian McCaffrey, the Panthers' offense was abysmal.
"(Grier) was thrown into an impossible situation," Olsen said, defending the young quarterback. "Two games left in a season where there's been countless issues and now, throw him out there, play incompetent football around him -- it's impossible to get any sort of judgment based on his performance today."
Olsen's criticism wasn't of the young players that have struggled in the recent weeks, but of the organization's issues from the top down.
"There were failures all around (Grier). Failures leading up to it," Olsen said. "I hope no one passes any judgment on Will's abilities as a player, in the future going forward. There were a lot of things at play he had to suffer the consequences of."
No one expected the Panthers to go on a run after Rivera was fired, but the epic collapse is an indictment of everyone left.
