The Las Vegas Raiders are still featuring minority owner Tom Brady in some kind of role, but no one knows what it is.
Las Vegas Raiders minority owner Tom Brady surfaced as a flag football advocate and player over the weekend, which made for plenty of opportunities to take potshots. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk rarely misses chances like this, and sure enough, he raised a significant question about the Raiders and Tom Brady going into Brady’s second full season with the teams.
To wit: “Are the Raiders and Tom Brady on the same page regarding his role?”
The question may be getting a little old and worn around the edges, but that doesn’t mean it’s been answered. As Florio notes, the Raiders have consistently created the impression that Brady has significant influence over the football operation.
Back in January of 2025, owner Mark Davis said he envisioned Brady to be “somebody on the football [side] that I had been lacking having here in the organization,” replacing Jon Gruden as “somebody that I brought in and really expected to be that person on the football side that would bring stability to the organization.”
Fast forward to early this year after coach Pete Carroll was fired, and the Raiders announced that "[m]oving forward, General Manager John Spytek will lead all football operations in close collaboration with Tom Brady.”
Brady, meanwhile, has provided a more “muted assessment” of his job with the Raiders, according to Florio, based on his comments last June.
“I’m just a limited partner, so Mark’s the boss. And then Pete does his job and [Spytek] does his job and, I think, we trust them to make the right decisions. I’m there as a great sounding board for anything they want to do.”
Brady was asked again about whether he’s a close collaborator or a sounding board, and Florio noted that he “filibustered his way through a non-answer.”
Florio then went on to speculate how things could play out separately in both roles, but none of this really matters. What does is the short course in what Brady’s really about for anyone who’s been following his post-playing celebrity career for the last few years.
If the Raiders are doing well, Brady will pop up in the spotlight to take his share of credit and then some, but he won’t do it blatantly. Last year he showed up early before the Raiders crashed and burned doing a cameo in the coach’s booth, which supposedly spoke volumes about the expertise he’s brought to the franchise.
When the Raiders struggle, though, or when Brady’s dual role is questioned, he’ll disappear back into his gig as a Fox analyst. He did that for the better part of three months last season, and it was only before the Super Bowl that Brady resurfaced to dodge questions about his connections to the New England Patriots.
None of this will change going forward, and everyone knows it. It’s a significant obstacle for new coach Klint Kubiak, and he’s going to need all the football luck he can muster to negotiate this NFL minefield.