Raiders reportedly request interviews with Lions coordinators, centering Tom Brady’s Fox broadcast conflict

When NFL fans tune in to watch the Detroit Lions in the playoffs in the coming weeks, they will likely experience a first.

There’s a better-than-decent chance they’ll hear an NFL owner give color commentary about the very coaches he’ll be interviewing for a job.

Since firing head coach Antonio Pierce on Tuesday, the Las Vegas Raiders have reportedly requested interviews with Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn.

Fox will cover the NFC playoffs and the Super Bowl, and Tom Brady — a minority owner of the Raiders — is a color analyst on Fox’s No. 1 broadcast team. As a minority owner, Brady is also expected to be heavily involved in the Raiders’ coaching search, a role that will reportedly include interviewing candidates and advising controlling Raiders owner Mark Davis.

Barring an early Lions exit or unexpected upheaval involving the benching of its $375 million analyst, Fox’s game coverage will feature an obvious conflict of interest.

As no. The No. 1 seed in the NFC, the Lions have a bye during wild-card weekend and will make their playoff debut in the divisional round. Fox will cover two NFC games that weekend, and it could avoid the conflict by airing its No. 1 broadcast team of Brady and Kevin Burkhardt for the second NFC game.

Or, given its already compromised decision to continue putting an NFL owner in the broadcast booth, Fox brass could very well shrug its collective shoulders and send Brady to Detroit for the divisional round. If the Lions win in the divisional round, there is no avoiding the conflict as long as Brady is in the box.

There is only one NFC Championship Game. And there is only one Super Bowl. As long as the Lions advance in the playoffs, Brady will be able to offer analysis to Johnson and Glenn in a role that requires honest criticism.

And thus lies the conflict, which would be twofold. Fans who tune in do so with the expectation that the commentary they hear is uninhibited and without bias.

How exactly is Brady going to handle that as long as Johnson and Glenn are Raiders coaching candidates? What if one or both make tactical mistakes that cost the Lions a playoff game? Will Brady risk relationships with coaching candidates by calling out these mistakes? Maybe he could. Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, teams with vacant coaches who aren’t the Raiders are at a disadvantage. If the Lions thrive and Brady offers glowing criticism of Johnson and Glenn, he will be the only NFL owner with a head coaching vacancy with the platform to do so in front of an audience of millions. Now imagine Jerry Jones in the same position as Brady in a scenario where the Cowboys have a head coaching vacancy. It’s not an exact parallel, but the conflict would be the same.

The NFL has put up some guardrails around Brady’s dual role as owner and broadcaster by limiting his access to other teams’ personnel and facilities. But that has done nothing to avoid this conflict that is now likely to play out during the season’s most prominent time.