Don’t let the smile and self-deprecation fool you. Tom Brady is, was and always will be a cut-throat competitor, and no one should be surprised by his willingness to flout the conflicts of interest between his two jobs the first chance he got.
Brady did not become a part-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders solely to bolster his investment portfolio. Nor did Mark Davis recruit the seven-time Super Bowl champion to sit quietly while the Raiders bumble from one season to the next. Brady and Davis want to win, and the surest way to do that is for Brady to play an active role in the Raiders’ front office.
He’s going to be part of a “collaborative committee” that interviews head coaching candidates, Adam Schefter reported earlier this week, citing unnamed league sources. No doubt the prospective general managers, too.
If that conflicts with Brady’s day job as a Fox broadcaster, and it very much does, that’s not his problem. He’s going to exploit any advantage he can, optics be damned.
Neither Davis nor Brady have said anything publicly this week, and the statements the team released after coach Antonio Pierce was fired Tuesday and then after general manager Tom Telesco was dismissed Thursday were not attributed to anyone. Make no mistake, however. Brady’s fingerprints are all over this transition.
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Even with the Raiders’ 4-13 record, there were arguments for keeping Pierce and Telesco for another season. Pierce, in his first full season, did a decent job with what little he had while Telesco had the foresight to draft Brock Bowers, one of the bright spots in the entire Raiders lineup.
But Davis, who tried to lure the future Hall of Famer to play for the Raiders after he left New England, has made it clear he prizes Brady’s opinion and plans to make use of his advice, and the housecleaning feels like a reset to allow the team to move forward with Brady’s own guys. That, or Las Vegas already has someone very specific in mind for one or both of the roles. Brady’s old teammate Mike Vrabel, perhaps? Or his longtime coach, Bill Belichick?
All of which would be fine. You can quibble with the way the Raiders handled the firings — the only thing colder than canning Pierce a day after allowing him to do a season-ending news conference was the way Telesco was strung along for four days before getting his walking papers — but it’s Davis’ and Brady’s team and they can make decisions however, and whenever, they want.
The problem is that Brady the part-owner will be interviewing candidates and trying to sell them on the Raiders at the same time Brady the broadcaster will be evaluating some of them during a nationally televised game. Will his praise, or criticism, be what he really thinks as Fox’s No. 1 analyst? Or will it be as a part-owner who is hoping to curry favor with one of the Raiders’ preferred candidates? Or to create a smoke screen that will make other teams think twice about someone the Raiders’ want?
These are no longer the hypotheticals that concerned other owners about Brady’s dual role as a broadcaster and owner. Fox will air the NFC playoff games, and Las Vegas has already asked permission to interview the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, and their defensive coordinator, Aaron Glenn.
Also among the handful of candidates the Raiders are reportedly pursuing is Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. The Chiefs are an AFC team, but guess which broadcaster has the Super Bowl this year? Yep, Fox!
These might not seem like significant conflicts, but that’s not the point. Part of the NFL’s success rests on fans being able to trust the product. It’s why the league is such a stickler about players and coaches gambling. (A hypocritical stickler, but a stickler nonetheless.) It’s why the league wigs out when the criticism of referees rises above typical fan grumbling.
To have the opinions of one of the NFL’s highest-profile analysts, and the motivations behind them, be open to question is a bad look. For all involved.
It also should probably make Fox question Brady’s commitment to the job he’s being paid $37.5 million a year to do, but that’s the network’s headache.
This should give Brady pause, but he’s never let moral conflicts get in the way of what he wants. This, remember, is a guy who served a four-game suspension for Deflategate. He’s always denied wrongdoing, but the destruction of his cell phone, and the timing of it, was awfully convenient. As the Patriots quarterback, he was the one who stood to benefit most from Belichick’s sign-stealing caper.
And Brady was happy to throw his support behind then-candidate Donald Trump when he thought it wouldn’t matter, only to clam up once it did.
Brady is accustomed to setting the bar in his profession. But even if he becomes a successful broadcaster, it won’t matter. Joe Theismann and Troy Aikman cornered that market long ago.
But if he can turn around the woeful Raiders, who’ve only made the playoffs twice since their last Super Bowl appearance in 2002 and run through coaches and GMs like single-use plastic? Now that would be an impressive accomplishment, something few other former stars have done.
So Brady will do what it takes, even if he has to bend a few norms along the way. As legendary Raiders owner Al Davis used to say, Just win, baby.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
