October 15, 2009

I went back to New Jersey this past weekend and got my jersey retired by my high school Friday night. That was cool, they had a ceremony at halftime and I got to see some guys I went to high school with. The coaches are still there and we had a great time, it was just cool to be back in town.

Saturday night we had a beefsteak dinner fundraising event for my charity and had a great turnout. There were 320 people and everyone did a great job of contributing. The Foundation is called Receptions for Research and it mainly benefits breast cancer organizations.

Sunday night I came back to Chicago.

The bye week was a nice chance to get healthy and recharge the battery. We have a long stretch now with 12 games in a row. It’s a long road ahead but the guys now are rejuvenated and ready to go.

We’re on Sunday Night Football this week in Atlanta against the Falcons. They do a lot of different stuff, mix man and zone defense. It’s a pretty good defense, they have fast guys up front who get after the quarterback and a good group of linebackers and a solid secondary, so it’s a good all-around defense. We have our work cut out for us. I’m excited to go down there, especially after losing to them last year the way we did.

I think everything is going well for the Bears, we had a pretty solid first quarter going 3-1. We’re in a good position to make a run at the division title and the conference game we have on Sunday is a good way to come back from the bye. We have to take care of business on the road because we have two games until we come back to play at home.

Personally, I feel pretty good about my performance thus far. My stats are not where they were anticipated to be at this point, but it’s early in the year and I’ll just continue to plug away. Balls come in groups, I know I just have to be patient and my time will come.

Greg Olsen is the starting tight end for the Chicago Bears. His blog for www.playerpress.com runs at www.golsen82.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gregolsen82.