Merlin Olsen as Jonathan Garvey on 'Little House on the Prairie'. (AP)

Merlin Olsen dies at 69 | Online guestbook

It puzzled me the first time I saw Merlin Olsen on TV, when my dad told me he played football.

Of course, now that I’m a huge football fan, I realize that Olsen was a giant — literally and figuratively — for the Los Angeles Rams, every bit a deserving hall-of-famer. Olsen passed away on March 11 at the age of 69 due to mesothelioma.

But my first exposure to Merlin was as a pitchman for FTD, the floral delivery company.

Olsen was downright pleasant in his demeanor and his voice. He seemed about as far from being a football player as anyone could be.

And it’s not as if I hadn’t seen football players become actors before. But they always seemed to play tough guys — you could easily tell that Bubba Smith, Jim Brown, Dick Butkus or Deacon Jones played football.

Merlin Olsen though had that beard and that smile. He seemed genuinely nice in every part he played — from Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie to the masquerading priest on Father Murphy.

Clearly, it didn’t hurt that he played in the entertainment capital of the world — his career started with a part in the 1969 John Wayne movie The Undefeated, and yeah, he did play the occasional tough guy too, like in 1975′s Mitchell, although even then he seemed like an ironic tough guy.

Olsen didn’t leave the world of football behind at all — he was a superb analyst on NBC, pairing with Dick Enberg on NFL broadcasts during the 1980s.

But even then, Merlin always seemed too nice to be an NFL player.

Probably should’ve asked one of the guys he tackled how nice he was.