CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Greg Olsen is about to have a very big decision to make.

The former Pro Bowl tight end for the Carolina Panthers has dazzled in his second career as an NFL analyst. Olsen is the No. 2 game analyst at Fox Sports, behind only Tom Brady. Before Brady left the playing field and moved up to the booth, Olsen spent two years with Fox’s “A” team in the No. 1 analyst role, which included calling a Super Bowl.

Now 41 and living with his family in Charlotte, Olsen will have a real chance to leapfrog into a No. 1 spot again this offseason. Olsen’s current contract expires at Fox at the end of this season, and he’s been rumored for the top NFL analyst job at several other networks that regularly broadcast NFL games.

“There’s five of these chairs,” Olsen said in our interview Wednesday. “There’s five of these ‘A’ jobs. You’ve got the four networks (CBS, ESPN, NBC and Fox), and you’ve got Amazon.”

Olsen makes no secret he wants to return to a No. 1 role — somewhere. He’s not sure what will happen.

Said Olsen: “The unique element of this industry is … there’s only five of them, right? There were 100 NFL tight ends. ... So it’s ultra-competitive. ... There are five spots that the whole world wants, and I think that’s what makes it fun.”

In our wide-ranging interview, Olsen and I also talked about the Panthers, Malik Nabers and Next Gen Trends powered by AWS, a new and free digital tool for NFL fans that debuts Thursday at NFL.com/trends.

Fans will next hear Olsen broadcasting from Germany on Sunday morning, as he’s doing the international game in Munich between New England and Detroit with play-by-play partner Joe Davis and sideline reporter Pam Oliver.

Here are excerpts from the Olsen interview, edited for clarity and brevity.

— Scott Fowler: What do you think is wrong with the Panthers, who have lost three in a row and are 3-5?

— Greg Olsen: I haven’t had one of their games (as a broadcaster this season). ... So I just get it from local radio, Twitter and talking to buddies, like a normal fan would. ... There are always multiple reasons for struggling, right? The big story for them is letting (defensive coordinator Ejiro) Evero go. They made some heavy investments on the defensive side of the ball, with Jaelan Phillips and Devin Lloyd. ... I think they’re in the process of program building. Roster building. When you lose star players for extended periods of time — Jaycee Horn, Mike Jackson, Jaelan Phillips — it’s tough.

The most interesting aspect of the team, and part of this is a credit to (head coach) Dave (Canales), is that when it feels like they’re down and out, they respond with a really big win. The issue is that they need to figure out how to sustain it when things are rolling. That feels to me like the overarching thing they’re trying to figure out.

— SF: The “Next Gen Trends powered by AWS” platform — what can you tell fans about that?

— GO: I’ve used it for broadcasts since I’ve done them, for six years now. Teams around the league are certainly using it. Profiles, data sets, research packets — it’s pretty amazing. ... So now, the platform they built will be free and open for anybody to use it.

It’s an unbelievably useful tool for us from a professional standpoint. And it’s always in real time, with the data constantly updated. ... If you want to see the Carolina Panthers offensive profile, for instance: personnel groupings, under center/gun ratios, pass/run efficiencies, personnel groupings ... you untangle things. You can dive so deep into the weeds. ... And now any fan can have the same access we do.

— SF: You are about to become a high-profile free agent in the NFL broadcast world. What do you think will happen next?

— GO: I’m just controlling what I can control. ... The reality is, there are a lot of good people sitting in those (No. 1 broadcasting team) chairs, and they’re very good at their job. And some of them, the (Cris) Collinsworths and the (Troy) Aikmans, they’ve been in those chairs for 20-plus years for a reason. ...

My aspirations of calling (the biggest) games — I got a taste of it for two years. Obviously, I got a great opportunity to do it … And I’ve been on record a million times saying in anything I’ve ever done, I didn’t want to just play tight end in the league. I wanted to be really good at it. So how it shakes out? I’m not privy to those discussions. We’ll see. In late winter and early spring, a lot of decisions will be made, that will kind of paint the picture of what those opportunities are.

— SF: There was a dustup this week that involved you, New York Giants receiver Malik Nabers and the media. Nabers took exception to some of your comments on the Giants game and took to social media to air his grievances. You’ve been perturbed at how this has been covered by the media. What are your thoughts now?

— GO: As so often happens with social media and aggregation of articles, one misquote, one thing that’s assigned to you: It just gets running, and there’s no killing it. People always say you can’t fight the internet. You can’t fight social media.

I could have spent all day the last two days going after people on podcasts and going after people in the articles, just flat-out misattributing words that were just never said on the broadcast. ... So I think that was really my main frustration. ...

I always feel like we try to be fair. I always feel like we have a job to tell the story of what’s happening in front of us, and also paint it in a light that’s reasonable and appropriate. ... Malik is an elite, star player in the biggest market in football. We’re going to cover him and the cameras are going to be on him because he’s a great player.

If he was a bad player, no one would care. If he was on a bad team in a small market, nobody would care. ... We have incredible respect for the player that Malik is. He is an elite young player on one of the best stories in football, which is the New York Giants having five wins through eight games. ... We didn’t call him out personally. ... I made the general statement about, “Hey, I want my wide receivers to want the ball. I want my wide receivers to be ultra-competitive. I’ve played with countless (numbers) of them. We all know that if you don’t want the ball, you probably stink.”

… I don’t want to be in a fight with Malik Nabers. I have a ton of respect for him. I have a ton of respect for (Giants coach) John Harbaugh. I grew up (near) Giants Stadium. The notion that there’s like a personal animosity there, it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll have (a Giants game) again one day, hopefully soon. Hopefully I get a chance to have a conversation with them and move on. I have no personal hard feelings toward any of it.

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