The NFL has placed significant restrictions on Tom Brady during his time as a broadcaster. Since the future Hall of Fame quarterback is now part-owner of the Raiders, he is prohibited from speaking attending practices, traveling to clubs’ facilities or doing onsite interview prep with coaches ahead of broadcast assignments.But a loophole may influence the Raiders’ coaching search.
Brady will be in Detroit for FOX’s divisional-round game (Commanders-Lions), and he would have a chance to both closely evaluate Ben Johnson (and Lions DC Aaron Glenn) and continue speaking with a coach who looks to be — at this juncture, at least — the Raiders’ early favorite.
Raiders-Johnson momentum is building, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Vincent Bonsignore. Clearly residing as a frontrunner here, Johnson is “seriously considering” the Raiders, The Athletic’s Vic Tafur notes. In predicting fits, Yahoo.com’s Charles Robinson placed Johnson in Vegas.
While Mark Davis is technically atop the organization, it is widely believed Brady is running the team’s HC and GM pursuits. A report pointed to this search being “Tom’s show,” and Tafur offers more in that direction by adding that the minority owner was heavily involved in the decisions to fire Antonio Pierce and Tom Telesco last week. Telesco was ultimately canned because the Raiders wanted to start fresh rather than pair a new coach with a holdover GM.
It is abnormal for a part-owner to have this much influence in searches of this magnitude, but Brady’s stature in the game makes him a special case. The 47-year-old exec’s presence is believed to have driven Johnson to add the Raiders to his interview list. The Lions’ OC has been picky about jobs since first joining a coaching carousel in 2023, and he famously backed out as the Commanders’ frontrunner last year. For Johnson to then be open to taking a Raiders job despite the lack of a quarterback presence and considering Davis’ lack of patience with coaches in recent years, it would certainly say a lot about Brady’s ability to recruit.
Las Vegas may be eyeing a Detroit-centric plan, with Tafur adding Commanders assistant GM Lance Newmark is believed to have an early leg up on the competition for the GM job. This would be an interesting development, as Newmark has not received an interview request just yet. Packers exec Jon-Eric Sullivan, Steelers staffer Sheldon White and ex-Brady Michigan teammate John Spytek — a Buccaneers assistant GM — are the interviewees thus far. Spytek held early momentum as a candidate to watch; Newmark making up ground would be interesting due to his history.
Although Newmark left for Washington in 2024, he spent more than 20 years as a Detroit exec. That obviously covers the time Johnson has spent with the franchise, and Tafur adds the Raiders view Newmark as a staffer who could pair well with the 38-year-old play-caller.
Brady began vetting Johnson when he did a Week 9 Lions-Packers broadcast, Tafur offers. This would obviously be an unusual way for a franchise to gather intel on a candidate, and it obviously calls Brady’s FOX role into question as far as objectivity goes. Considering the steam Johnson has gained with the Raiders, the ongoing Brady conflict-of-interest subplot will continue Saturday.
Johnson is still in play for the Bears and Jaguars’ jobs, and while it is not known if the teams have him as a favorite, Mike Vrabel being off the carousel leaves Johnson as the hottest candidate based on history and the Lions’ dominant season on offense. The Jags are believed to be heavily interested. Johnson cannot conduct any second interviews until a Super Bowl bye week, or if the Lions are eliminated earlier.
For Johnson to back out of the Commanders’ search only to join the Raiders would represents a borderline coup for Brady, and it would add even more intrigue to a division that has seen tremendous coaching talent join Andy Reid in recent years. Johnson would join Sean Payton and Jim Harbaugh in the AFC West. The Raiders still have interviews to go through, and Johnson’s past should remind this is not a done deal. But this much noise about the situation is certainly interesting this early in the process.
I heard the Jets were considering him but Johnson’s Madden score wasn’t high enough.
Lmao
Why is Brady allowed to broadcast the Lions this week if he’s running the show in Vegas? This should be getting way more attention than it is especially if Vegas ends up with Johnson.
Because we live in the Twilight Zone now. That section of it where things that used to matter on the most basic level, no longer matter…….
Because the two things should have 0 impact on each other.
But of course, they do. Any face time with a potential hire is important and we all know Brady likes to push the envelope on rules.
So you would be fine if Jerry Jones was the #1 color analyst for Fox? (separate from how bad he would be at it).
If I owned one of the other 31 teams I would have no interest in a rival owner gathering intel on my team while serving as an analyst for Fox.
He’s broadcasting the game, not playing or officiating. But I already feel a majority of the play by play/color guys are terrible. Very terrible and Brady is one of them. I feel the CFB guys are far better. The network really need to change on who they hire.
Broadcasters typically go to practices, watch game prep, and talk to players and coaches about their game plan. Brady has already been restricted from doing some of this because of his role with another team. If he’s directly involved in hiring for a team, and his broadcasting role allows him to talk to coaches who are not yet allowed to talk to hiring teams, this is obviously at least sketchy territory in terms of tampering.
Why is Brady’s interest in a coach a problem for broadcasting? For that matter, if he is biased toward the Lions as a broadcaster, how does that affect anything to do with gameplay? Collinsworth and Romo’s bias toward Mahomes and Allen respectively has never proven to affect anything game outcomes or be an issue for their job security.
“he is prohibited from speaking attending practices, traveling to clubs’ facilities or doing onsite interview prep with coaches ahead of broadcast assignments”
How is him being in Detroit an issue again? Any other GM can buy a playoff ticket and watch the same thing Brady sees…
As its been mentioned he is restricted from a lot of things, including the pre-game meetings other broadcasters do. He really isn’t getting a leg up. For once I think the NFL actually did something right, could they do more, perhaps. He can’t really steer the game in a direction. I don’t think he has done any Raider games. There have been a couple times this year he has made a comment and was completely wrong, but would have known if he was in any production meeting (Boomer Esiason pointed it out a few times here in NY).
However, I think the only thing to note now, is to monitor his critically of situations and compare it to past broadcasts.
Good luck if he goes to the Raiders. No QB or RB plus Davis and the AFC West to contend with.
That’d be foolish.
The only way he’s going to the Raiders is if they make him an offer he can’t refuse. Or he wakes up with a severed horse head in his bed.