Lions’ playoff run puts Tom Brady’s conflict in sharper focus

On January 19, 2025By Littum

The conflict arising from Tom Brady’s dual role as co-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and the lead analyst on Fox’s NFL broadcasts will be on display Saturday night.

Brady will be at Ford Field in Detroit to call the Lions’ divisional-round playoff game against the Washington Commanders. That means he will be making comments to a large audience in a high-profile postseason game involving two Lions assistant coaches — offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn — who are candidates for the Raiders’ head coaching vacancy. job.

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Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl-winning former quarterback for the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who is finishing his first season with Fox, is believed to be actively involved in the Raiders’ coaching search. And many in the sport view Johnson, the creative architect behind a Lions offense that led the NFL in scoring in the regular season, as the Raiders’ favorite candidate.

“I think that’s the guy they want to hire if they can,” said an agent who represents NFL coaches but does not represent Johnson.

The question therefore becomes the impartiality of the Fox broadcast. What will Brady say about Johnson, Glenn and the Lions’ offensive and defensive approaches and play-calling? Would he say he disagrees with anything the Lions do? If he gives praise, is it genuine? Fans regularly complain that broadcasters have a bias for or against certain teams. Often there is no justification for such complaints. But in most of these cases, one of the broadcasters is not talking about someone that he is trying to hire for his own team.

Johnson was asked during a press conference Wednesday at the Lions’ practice facility if he is allowed to have any interaction with Brady on the field before the game. He said he had met with Brady before a game this season against the Green Bay Packers.

“I know nothing of that nature,” Johnson said. “I met him (at) the Packers game on the field. I saw him for a second in pregame. That’s the first time I’ve ever met him. And that’s it.”

Johnson had a remote interview with the Raiders last week. He is not permitted to interview any team in person until after the divisional round of the playoffs, per NFL rules. He declined to say Wednesday whether he spoke with Brady during the virtual interview.

“Above my pay grade,” Johnson said.

Brady operated this season under a set of restrictions imposed by the NFL on his Fox duties stemming from the concerns of other franchise owners. The league banned Brady from participating in broadcast production meetings with NFL teams and from being in the teams’ facilities to watch their practices or conduct other activities. He is also subject to potential discipline from the NFL if he violates the league’s rules regarding referee criticism and tampering with players and coaches under contract with other teams.

The league planned to take a pragmatic approach to politicizing Brady’s on-air comments, and the regular season passed without major incidents involving Brady’s many endeavors. The question doesn’t appear to be a major concern for other teams and owners, even with the situation that will play out at Saturday’s game.

A senior NFL team official said Thursday that he “hadn’t really thought about it” recently, adding that he had “not heard any complaints about it” in the league.

The NFL and Fox did not respond to requests for comment.

The owners voted in October to approve Brady’s deal to co-own the Raiders. Brady and Tom Wagner, co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management, are believed to have bought approximately 10 percent of the Raiders for an undisclosed price.

The deal had been pending in the NFL’s finance committee for more than a year, largely because of the size of the discount that Mark Davis, the Raiders’ principal owner, initially tried to give Brady on the purchase price.

“There were a lot of things from a structure and due diligence standpoint that had to happen, and that’s why it took so long to get approved,” said Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, the chairman of the finance committee. owners meeting in Atlanta on the day the deal was ratified.

Davis said that day that he understood other owners’ reservations about Brady’s dual role.

“It’s something they had concerns about,” Davis said afterward. “I will say that if an owner of the Chiefs wanted to come in and interview my head coach and quarterback, I probably wouldn’t want him to do that either. … I understood what people were concerned about.”

Brady has become a key voice in the Raiders’ decision-making, just as Davis envisioned in October.

“Even though Tom can’t play,” Davis then said, “I think he can help us draft a quarterback in the future and potentially coach him as well. So that’s a huge benefit to the organization.”

Helping select a coach to succeed the fired Antonio Pierce will also apparently be part of Brady’s contribution. Some people in the sport believe Johnson is considering the Raiders, despite their coaching instability in recent years and their precarious quarterback situation, only because of Brady’s presence. Johnson is a sought-after candidate who is being pursued by several teams after withdrawing from head coaching considerations last season when he might have been in line to be hired by the Commanders or Seattle Seahawks.

“This shortcut, I’ve been a lot more prepared for the types of questions they’ve asked,” Johnson said Wednesday. “I have also changed my attitude a bit. Instead of just worrying about the offense and what we’re doing right here, I’ve been able to have offseasons and summers to think about the big picture of what a program would look like where I’m running it. And so I think that way I am much more prepared for the questions that come my way and much more comfortable answering them.”