This was not Brady at his finest. He deflected, made excuses, lacked self-awareness, and brushed off his critics as merely “the paranoid and distrustful.” It sounded a lot like a guy whose red hat Brady once kept in his locker.
“Because when you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest,” Brady wrote.
I suppose I’m one of those paranoid folks, because the conflict of interest here is pretty obvious. Brady wants the Raiders to succeed, he gets special access to players and coaches from 31 other teams thanks to Fox, and he shares that information with the Raiders. Antonio Pierce, last year’s Raiders head coach, said as much in an interview last week. Pete Carroll, this year’s coach, said he talks to Brady 2-3 times per week. The NFL even crafted special rules for Brady, restricting his access for Fox because of the relationship.
The conflict isn’t hypothetical — Brady called Cowboys-Bears last Sunday, and the Bears face his Raiders this Sunday.
Brady downplays his role with the Raiders as that of a “minority owner,” but he’s being disingenuous. Brady is the big boss. The Raiders’ new general manager was Brady’s college teammate and worked with him in Tampa. Brady had a large say in hiring the coach and choosing the quarterback. Alex Guererro, Brady’s longtime trainer, works for the Raiders in an official capacity.
“I have a deep desire to help refresh and reinvigorate the culture of a franchise with cherished traditions and a long, storied history in professional football,” Brady wrote of the Raiders.
Conflict of interest? It’s not even up for debate.
It’s another example of Brady’s complicated relationship with following the rules and pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. No other broadcaster has a direct, financial relationship with a team.
Yet in Brady’s world, the mere suggestion of this is ludicrous.
“We are living through a period of great paranoia and distrust,” he wrote. “I don’t know what it is about judgmental people, but their judgments never seem to be positive or optimistic.”
None of Brady’s critics are being judgmental. They (we) just think his arrangement doesn’t pass the smell test, and the NFL should force him to pick a lane — owner or broadcaster.
The NFL allows Brady’s dual life, which is all that matters, though the league has never fully explained why.
But Brady doesn’t live on Planet Sensible anymore, which is probably why he’s having a difficult time connecting with the Fox TV audience each Sunday. He’s on Planet Superstar, where everyone caters to your whim and your greatness is never questioned.
Brady is pretty naive if he didn’t expect any brushback. Perhaps he genuinely thinks nothing wrong of his setup; conflicts of interest are de rigueur in Washington these days.
Brady clearly needs more people in his life to tell him no. He shouldn’t have written this newsletter in the first place — his comments serve only to resuscitate a topic that was fading away. And Brady needs someone to let him know when he’s lacking self-awareness.
Brady writes, presumably with a straight face, about how seriously he takes his commitment to Fox viewers. The theme of his piece is “duty and integrity. Doing your job the right way.”
“I want everyone who tunes into Fox on Sunday afternoons to feel like they got their money’s worth for the three hours they entrust to our entire team,” he wrote. “Those are precious hours for busy, hard-working people. We owe them a return on that investment, which is to do our jobs to the best of our abilities.”
Nowhere does Brady acknowledge that his dual role actually detracts from his Fox job, since his access to team facilities is restricted and players and coaches have acknowledged they are extra careful about what they say around him. Brady is less informed as a broadcaster than he would be if he weren’t also running the Raiders.
Brady also is aghast that anyone would dare suggest he uses his Fox platform for personal gain with the Raiders.
“People who are [blinded by distrust], particularly to a chronic, pathological degree, are telling on themselves,” Brady wrote. “They’re admitting that they can only conceive of interests that are selfish; that they cannot imagine a person doing their job for reasons that are greater than themselves.”
Because Brady didn’t buy into the Raiders so he could skip the line and run his own NFL franchise just two years after retiring. And he’s not calling games for Fox because of the fat paycheck ($37.5 million per year) and access to the biggest names in media and entertainment.
No, he’s doing this altruistically. For the game, and you, the football fan.
“It’s the place from which my ethical duty emerges: to grow, evolve, and improve the game that has given me everything,” Brady wrote. “These days when it comes to football, I’m motivated, very much like a coach or a teacher, to grow and improve the game by sharing my knowledge and wisdom in support of the young people who play it. I’m driven not by what football can do for me, but what I can do for it.”
Brady can’t believe that he has to even explain himself.
“There is rarely any benefit of the doubt,” Brady laments.
Yeah, Tom. Welcome to the real world.