Tom Brady says his role as NFL broadcaster and a Raiders minority owner is 'not actually a point of conflict'

A number of prominent NFL voices were forced to weigh in after Fox broadcaster and Las Vegas Raiders minority owner Tom Brady was shown in a Raiders’ coaches box during the team’s Week 2 game against the Los Angeles Chargers. The NFL, Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks and some concerned football executives all shared their thoughts on whether Brady was in violation of league rules.

Brady, however, stayed silent on the issue … until now. Brady addressed both roles in his newsletter Wednesday, where he eventually reached the conclusion that his role as a broadcaster and a team owner was “not actually a point of conflict.”

Brady’s explanation takes quite a few twists and turns, though. Brady begins his newsletter by stating, “We are living through a period of great paranoia and distrust.” He then talked about integrity, repeating the popular “do your job” catchphrase from his former coach Bill Belichick.

Brady then broke down each of his roles. As a broadcaster, Brady said it was his duty to “entertain and inform.” As a Raiders minority owner, Brady said he wanted to “refresh and reinvigorate” the franchise back to its former glory.

That brought Brady to his main point, in which he blamed the “paranoid and distrustful” for questioning his ethics.

“I love football. At its core it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport; which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe. Rather, it’s the place from which my ethical duty emerges: to grow, evolve, and improve the game that has given me everything.”

He later explained that because we live in “uncertain and untrusting times,” it’s easy for people to assume the worst and assume that Brady is working to further his own self-interest. Brady then said the people who think that way are actually the problem.

“When you live through uncertain and untrusting times like we are today, it is very easy to watch a person’s passions and profession intersect, and to believe you’re looking at some sort of dilemma. Because when you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest.

People who are like that, particularly to a chronic, pathological degree, are telling on themselves. They’re showing you their worldview and how they operate. 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. (These kinds of people make horrible teammates, by the way.)”

Brady’s entire argument basically boiled down to him saying, “Just trust me, bro,” but in many more words.

It’s not a particularly strong defense. Brady could have used his newsletter to refute some concerns people had about his roles. He could have explicitly said he does not talk to Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly about his conversations with other coaches around the NFL. He could have given examples of how careful he is to separate his work as a broadcaster from his job as an owner.

Instead, Brady acknowledged that there is a lot of overlap between his two roles, but then tried to wave that away by claiming he’s not the type of person who would take advantage of that.

That may be true. Brady may have the best intentions for balancing both roles.

But it’s also worth noting that Brady was accused of unethical behavior a few times as the player. The most notable example of that was Deflategate, in which Brady was accused of knowing New England Patriots staff members were intentionally deflating footballs to give the team an edge. Rather than cooperate with the NFL’s investigation, the league found that Brady told one of his assistants to destroy his phone. He received and served a four-game suspension from the NFL for his actions.

Brady was also involved in a possible tampering situation in 2022, when reports emerged suggesting the Miami Dolphins may have tried to urge Brady to retire so the team could sign him as a part-owner, trade for his player rights and then have him come out of retirement to play for them. Those allegations were never fully explored by the league after Brady came out of retirement and played one more season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But those very legitimate concerns don’t get addressed by Brady in his newsletter, where he instead concludes the people questioning his ethics need to look inside themselves.

“You might not be able to see it at first, but that may be because you haven’t been willing to look. Or you’ve forgotten how. That can happen when we neglect our ‘Why’ and lose track of what drove us to do our jobs in the first place.”

Addressing the situation in the first place was probably a mistake by Brady. Following the NFL’s statement, in which the league said Brady wasn’t breaking any rules, everyone moved on. There were more games to cover and more football-related storylines to discuss. The Brady situation felt like the distance past.

Brady’s newsletter is unlikely to change any of that. The league and Fox aren’t going to take action after Brady defended himself.

All Brady did with the newsletter was reignite the story and invite more criticism, which was probably the opposite of what he intended.

Tom Brady says his role as NFL broadcaster and a Raiders minority owner is ‘not actually a point of conflict’

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