Sean Payton does not go on vacation much, he proclaimed. So when Tom Brady texted the Broncos head coach recently to ask if he’d coach in a three-team flag football tournament in Saudi Arabia in 2026, Payton looked at his calendar. It was a vacation week in March.
Payton accepted, on one seeming condition: Brady had to be on his squad.
“It’s significant when it comes to growing our game, with the Olympics not far around the corner,” Payton said of Brady’s recently announced event, which will include other NFL stars and head coaches Pete Carroll and Kyle Shanahan.
They appear set to team up, then, in Saudi Arabia. In this current NFL landscape, though, they are figures on opposite sides of divisional lines, with Payton leading the Broncos and with Brady a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. And Brady has come under fire recently for some rather questionable overlap in access: In the Raiders’ Week 2 loss to the Chargers, the former NFL legend was seen in the Las Vegas coaching booth wearing a headset.
Naturally, this raised red flags league-wide, even as the NFL clarified there aren’t any rules prohibiting a minority owner from sitting in the booth. Brady, of course, is also a play-by-play announcer with Fox and can attend production meetings remotely and participate in general game prep.
Payton shrugged this all off Wednesday, despite the clear possibility of a theoretical competitive advantage for a divisional rival.
“It doesn’t concern me,” Payton said. “Meaning, look, I understand he’s part ownership with the division opponent. I get that. And then he covers NFL games. That doesn’t bother me.”
The Broncos host the Raiders on Nov. 6 and travel to Vegas on Dec. 7 this season. Brady isn’t currently slated to call a Broncos game for Fox this season, but several of his games remain unknown. Denver plays the Texans Nov. 2 on Fox, a date where Brady doesn’t have a definite schedule set yet, according to Fox Sports.