The Las Vegas Raiders are the worst team in the NFL right now, and it’s not particularly close. They still have to lose to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday to lock up the top draft pick in 2026, but the way the Raiders are playing, losses are a pro forma exercise that starts the minute they take the field.
Coach Pete Carroll will almost certainly be fired on Monday, and most of the “solutions” currently making the rounds have the Raiders getting a new coach and drafting a quarterback. This isn’t a solution at all, but there is one proposal that’s a little different.
Michael Silver of The Athletic thinks minority owner Tom Brady should run the team full time. This won’t happen, of course, but it is interesting to contemplate.
Brady is currently living in Florida, and he’s currently working what some would call his “day job” as lead analyst for Fox Sports. It’s sort of a full-time gig, and it’s allowed Brady to avoid responsibility for some of the decisions that were reportedly his this past season.
These include passing on quarterback Sam Darnold in free agency, giving his seal of approval to the Carroll hire, the shotgun marriage between Carroll and fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, and trading for quarterback Geno Smith.
According to Silver, Brady now supposedly wanted to hire Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson, and he wanted quarterback Matthew Stafford as the Raiders quarterback. This sounds like after-the-fact damage control, given that both targets spurned the Raiders for some very good reasons.
The idea that Brady could turn the Raiders around is almost as goofy as the one that would have him interested in the job in the first place. He has a cushy job with Fox that doesn’t particularly thrill him, according to reports, despite the fact that it pays a reported $36 million a year.
Brady does seem more than a little bit lost in celebrity land, however. He hasn’t found a role that suits him, and as a player Brady was adamant about insisting that he wouldn’t coach because of the hours that were involved. Being involved in the day-to-day operation would require even longer hours, and in an organization that’s been redefining its own dysfunction for a long time now.
The former superstar quarterback has also shown no acumen to make good football decisions, if he was indeed involved in any of the moves that were made this year. We have no idea where he’s ultimately going to wind up, but it’s not going to have much to do with the Raiders other than having his name on the ownership masthead.