Can anyone save the Raiders? It's time for Tom Brady to try
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Michael Silver
Brady as a silent advisor to the Las Vegas Raiders is one thing, but a present, fully accountable boss would send a far different message.
The Las Vegas Raiders are the worst team in the NFL, and they’re leaning into the mantle. In the last week alone, they’ve alienated their best and most competitive player by shutting him down for the season and gotten blown out in their home stadium by perhaps the league’s second-worst team.
On Sunday, barring an unplanned show of strength against the Kansas City Chiefs, they’ll clinch the No. 1 pick in April’s draft in front of their famished fans, sparking hope for a less dismal future.
The Raiders need a lot of help. They need a leader. They need the front-office equivalent of a tough, hyper-competitive, ruthless quarterback staring down the opposition and acting large and in charge.
It’s time for Tom Brady to come out of the shadows.
Brady, since becoming a minority owner in October 2024, has been in a prime position to influence organizational decisions. Depending on what you read and whom you talk to — and trust me, there are plenty of people in the Raiders’ organization who aren’t sure which calls are being made by whom — Brady is being treated by owner Mark Davis as the de facto boss when it comes to football matters.
Yet Brady, in addition to being very busy, lives in Florida and thus far has displayed no desire to be the frontman in Sin City. At times, he has literally hovered in the background; during the Raiders’ Week 2 home defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers, Brady was spotted in the second row of the Vegas coaching booth wearing a headset.
If anything, Brady has gone out of his way to act like he’s not in charge, such as when he was asked on the “Impaulsive” podcast last May to comment on Shedeur Sanders’ draft slide and said, “I wasn’t part of any evaluation process.”
That detached-observer vibe is hard to reconcile with the reality that the Raiders chose not to pursue Sam Darnold in free agency last spring because Brady wasn’t a fan, as I reported in June.
I’m not here to question Brady’s assessment of quarterbacks, or anything else about his football sensibilities. I spent nearly a quarter-century covering his sublime career and watched him become a superstar who, despite achieving more success than any quarterback of the modern era, never lost his edge.
He’s one of the most relentlessly driven humans I’ve ever encountered — and there’ve been a lot of those, from Michael Jordan to Jerry Rice to Serena Williams — and I can’t think of a single reason he wouldn’t succeed at running an NFL team.
That’s why, selfishly, I want him to drop everything, march into Allegiant Stadium with that savage look in his eye and announce that he’s the new Emperor of Raider Nation.
For a rabid and disarmingly loyal fan base that has enjoyed … checks notes … two playoff appearances (and zero victories) over the past 23 seasons, this would be a very welcome sight.
Sure, Brady can still theoretically run the show behind the scenes, but that creates ambiguity that does not serve the interests of the franchise — internally or externally. A silent advisor is one thing; a present, fully accountable boss (in every sense of the word) sends a far different message.
One of Brady’s greatest gifts is his ability to push, prod and inspire those around him to collective excellence. I want the exacting dude who once called his offensive linemen “fat cows” during a New England Patriots training-camp walkthrough, the maniac who once almost inadvertently ran over Buffalo Bills owner Kim Pegula before a game, to be the dude running the show for all the world to see.
Granted, it’s easy for me to say. In reality, it’s complicated. Brady shares custody of two teenaged kids who are based in South Florida. He makes $37.5 million a year to serve as a Fox analyst on the network’s lead NFL broadcast team. For the record, I’m not one of those people caught up in the potential conflict-of-interest that Brady’s Fox role presents, nor do I have a single complaint about his on-camera skills.
Tom Brady is both the lead analyst for Fox and a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
It would just be really, really cool if he decided to drop everything and dive in — and, eventually, turned the Raiders into a consistent winner.
Imagine, hypothetically, if Brady’s most decorated playing rival, Peyton Manning, accepted such a role. Manning, based on everything we know about him, would embrace the opportunity in conspicuous fashion. You can picture him in a press conference setting last January announcing, “I just fired Tom Telesco and Antonio Pierce, and I’ll be spearheading the search for a new general manager and coach from this moment on.”
It would look a lot like the way Manning conducted things at the line of scrimmage during his first-ballot Hall of Fame career. And for point of reference, it might ultimately resemble the reign of the man who persuaded Manning to sign with the Denver Broncos in 2012: John Elway, another all-time great quarterback who became a highly successful general manager.
Brady, in my opinion, would also kick ass and take names. It might not be instantaneous, but I believe he’d help the Raiders recall their glory days from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s.
And heaven knows they need some assistance.
The Raiders, who somehow beat the Patriots on the road in their season opener, have lost 14 of 15 games. They have maybe four players (edge rusher Maxx Crosby, tight end Brock Bowers, left tackle Kolton Miller and rookie running back Ashton Jeanty) who’d be sought after by playoff-caliber teams, and their 2025 draft class — Jeanty’s recent breakout game against the Houston Texans notwithstanding — has made almost no immediate impact.
Sure, they’ll be able to secure a prospective franchise quarterback if they land that first overall pick, though currently there’s no consensus can’t-miss prospect. Either way, this is a team that needs much, much more than a promising QB.
Presumably, Brady will be involved in those evaluations. The way things are set up now, however, it’s hard to tell.
After the 2024 season, there were reports that Brady was targeting Ben Johnson as the Raiders’ next coach and Matthew Stafford (with whom he had a fortuitous meeting on the ski slopes) as Vegas’ quarterback. Johnson rejected the Raiders’ overtures and instead took a job with the Chicago Bears, who just won their first NFC North title since 2018. Stafford elected to head back up the lift and continue his run with the Los Angeles Rams; he’s a leading MVP candidate for the playoff-bound team.
In each case, Brady didn’t seem to have a great Plan B. Then again, no one is sure exactly how much influence he wielded as the process played out.
What role, for example, did Brady play in the decision to hire then-73-year-old Pete Carroll to coach a team clearly in need of a protracted rebuild? Who spearheaded the ill-fated move to make Chip Kelly the league’s highest-paid offensive coordinator, or to trade a third-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks for quarterback Geno Smith (and to give Smith a two-year, $75-million extension, more annually than Darnold would have cost)?
Were those Brady’s calls? Did Davis, the primary owner desperate for Brady’s guidance, weigh in? Were first-year general manager John Spytek and Carroll granted the authority to do what they felt was best?
Plenty of people who work under Spytek, Carroll and Davis don’t know the answer to those questions.
It’s been a brutal season for the Raiders’ best player, Maxx Crosby, and head coach, Pete Carroll. (Chris Unger / Getty Images)
Similarly, it wasn’t clear who made the call to shut down Crosby last Friday, a move that compelled the aggrieved edge rusher to leave the team’s training facility in a huff. Spytek delivered the news, explaining to Crosby that the Raiders did not want to risk him further exacerbating a left knee injury that will require offseason surgery. Yet in that moment, Crosby couldn’t be sure whether that edict — which, in conjunction with earlier shutdowns of Miller’s and Bowers’ seasons, obviously aligned with a desire to secure the first pick — came from Spytek, Davis, Brady, Carroll, wellness coordinator Alex Guerrero (a longtime Brady confidante), or some or all of the above.
If the Raiders expected Crosby’s reaction to be, Tank you very much, they must have been delusional. As Crosby had said to reporters three days earlier, “I don’t give a s— about the (first) pick, to be honest.”
One of the NFL’s most accomplished and ferocious performers since being picked in the fourth round of the 2019 draft, Crosby is now on his fifth head coach (counting 2021 interim coach Rich Bisaccia) in seven seasons. He has given everything to an organization that has repeatedly failed him, and now, at 28, he’s facing another extreme overhaul.
Is Crosby fed up enough to ask for a trade? If so, who could blame him? The Raiders, who need draft picks in April like casinos need air conditioning in August, would likely accommodate that request.
And if Crosby wants to stay? It’s quite possible they’ll shop him anyway.
Upheaval is in the air, as it usually is when a team bottoms out. Though Carroll is one of the most accomplished coaches of his generation, it appears likely that another coaching change is imminent.
Should that happen, Carroll, who deserves better, will probably breathe a sigh of relief.
Quick turnarounds are possible in the NFL, and perhaps the Raiders really are a coach and franchise quarterback away from becoming competitive. That seems far-fetched, but so was the idea of a sixth-round draft pick who spent his rookie season as the Patriots’ fourth-string quarterback leading them to one of the biggest upsets in football history to end his second season, dropping the curtains on the Greatest Show on Turf.
