The beef between Fox announcer Greg Olsen and New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers has taken a heated turn. It all started when Olsen criticized Nabers for his expressions on the sideline during the Week 9 game against the Philadelphia Eagles. According to him, there’s a “very fine line between being demanding, being a competitor, and all those great things.” But Nabers didn’t like it. 

Nabers was pretty quick to take to social media and asked the broadcasters to keep the cameras away from him if they don’t like how he plays. He believed that Olsen called him a bad teammate, and lashed out at the broadcaster. That’s when Cam Newton came to Olsen’s rescue and clarified that Nabers misinterpreted Olsen’s words. 

“Proper interpretation matters,” Newton said on 4th & 1. “When somebody sends that clip to Malik Nabers, because he replied back so fast, this was right after the game. His partner, his homeboy, family member, they say, ‘Man, bro. Try to take a beat, bro. Now, understand. Even for Malik, I’m not choosing sides here. I’m just trying to give perspective. 

“I know Greg. When I hear that, that’s not what Greg is saying. Greg played with me. And if anybody knows about being misunderstood, it’s me. There’s many times that a guy like Greg has went to bat to change the narrative or shift the narrative by saying that’s not Cam. Like, people are always critiquing Cam that don’t even know Cam, in the same way Malik feels what he feels.”

Newton further emphasized that just because the camera happens to catch an entity with a particular expression, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people know what they’re going through. To bolster his take, he provided an example of a time when he was an active player. 

“There’s times where folks think that I was beefing with a particular person when I was really beefing with the training staff, when I was really beefing with the coach,” Newton clarified. “I ain’t got no problem with the coach. Coach has to understand why would we call this play in this type of situation.”

During Sunday’s broadcast, Olsen claimed that he had played with multiple great wide receivers and they seldom shied away from demanding the ball. But they could never cross the fine line between being demanding and being a competitor. According to Olsen, one should never take away from the success of their teammates. 

During a press conference on Tuesday, Nabers claimed that targeting his body language instead of focusing on his performance was unfair. He doesn’t want anyone to say untrue things about him. That’s why he decided to take a stand for himself. 

“I’m going to use my own voice and be able to speak up about me being a bad teammate, and I felt like that was just a lie,” Nabers said. “Just attacking my character as a football player and as a teammate.” 

ESPN’s Jordan Raanan later reported that several Giants players vouched for Nabers and believed him to be an emotional and competitive wide receiver. Later on, Olsen took to X and clarified that his comments on Nabers never suggested that he was a bad teammate. But the damage was already done. 

For now, Nabers remained focused on the upcoming game against the Washington Commanders. Yet, he kept the door open for Olsen. He claimed that he was ready if the broadcaster wanted to have a simple conversation.