Coaching search ups the ante on Tom Brady’s conflict of interest

Raiders minority owner Tom Brady is involved in his team’s search for a coach. Fox broadcaster Tom Brady will be working postseason games involving one or more of the candidates to be hired to be his team’s next coach.

The situation raises Brady’s conflict of interest to a higher level.

The Raiders’ initial candidates include Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, and Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. If Fox gets the divisional game involving the Lions, Brady will be working that game. If the Lions qualify for the conference championship, Brady will be working that game.

If the Lions, Ravens, or Chiefs qualify for the Super Bowl, Brady will be working that game.

The NFL’s restrictions on Brady’s ability to attend practice and to participate in production meetings, given his ownership of the Raiders, don’t prevent him from calling people associated with an upcoming game, or from talking to them face-to-face on the field during pregame warmups.

Will he be allowed to talk to Johnson and Glenn? (We’re in the process of getting clarity on that question from the NFL.)

It’s easy for the league (or anyone else) to say, “Tom would never cross the line during those conversations.” In eight days, however, we’ll be commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the game that prompted the NFL to conclude that Brady cheated and later covered up the evidence of his cheating.

From the NFL’s letter to Brady when it suspended him four games for #Deflategate:

“[T]here is substantial and credible evidence to conclude you were at least generally aware of the actions of the Patriots’ employees involved in the deflation of the footballs and that it was unlikely that their actions were done without your knowledge. Moreover, the report documents your failure to cooperate fully and candidly with the investigation, including by refusing to produce any relevant electronic evidence (emails, texts, etc.), despite being offered extraordinary safeguards by the investigators to protect unrelated personal information, and by providing testimony that the report concludes was not plausible and contradicted by other evidence.

“Your actions as set forth in the report clearly constitute conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the game of professional football. The integrity of the game is of paramount importance to everyone in our league, and requires unshakable commitment to fairness and compliance with the playing rules. Each player, no matter how accomplished and otherwise respected, has an obligation to comply with the rules and must be held accountable for his actions when those rules are violated and the public’s confidence in the game is called into question.”

Moreover, there’s a difference between impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. Even if Brady never, ever does anything like what the league accused him of doing a decade ago, it just looks and feels off.

Beyond Brady’s pregame communications with Raiders coaching candidates, consider his in-game remarks about them. Will he pull punches on criticizing them if they do something he thinks is stupid? Will he excessively praise them? Will he comment on their futures as potential head coaches?

Will he mention the Raiders are interested? Will he disclose to the Fox audience that he owns roughly 10 percent of the team? (Has he ever?)

In post-standards America, few seem to care about this. More should. The NFL should require Brady to pick a lane. Brady should do it on his own.

We keep thinking the league is hoping he eventually will. To date, he seems to be oblivious about the minefield through he’s strolling. Which means either that he has less self-awareness than Michael Scott or that Brady is hyperaware of the fact that he can do whatever the hell he wants.

However it plays out, the league has undergone a dramatic shift in its attitude toward Brady. In 2015, they thought he was a cheater and, basically, a liar. In 2025, they have a blind spot for Brady bigger than the case that holds, among other things, the Super Bowl MVP trophy he won two weeks after the #Deflategate game.