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Tom Brady apparently doesn’t help the Raiders prepare for games as much as their coaches previously said he does.
Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly walked back comments he made earlier this week about Brady’s involvement with the team.
The NFL legend turned Fox broadcaster was spotted in the coaches’ booth during Monday night’s Raiders–Chargers game. Shortly after retiring in 2022, Brady signed a 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox to become the network’s top color analyst. He also has a 5% stake in the Raiders, which was approved by the league’s owners last October and has drawn scrutiny for a potential conflict of interest by serving as a color analyst while owning a piece of the team.
During Monday night’s broadcast, ESPN reported Brady and Kelly talk multiple times during the week about the team’s upcoming opponents. Raiders coach Pete Carroll disputed that in his postgame press conference after his team’s 20–9 loss.
“We have conversations,” Carroll said. “I talk to Tom, Chip talks to Tom regularly. We have a tremendous asset. And we all get along and respect each other. We just talk about life and football. He has great insight, so we’re lucky to have him as an owner.”
During his own press conference on Thursday, Kelly clarified that his conversations with Brady aren’t about strategy.
“I don’t know what was said on the broadcast because we don’t watch the games,” Kelly said. “But Tom’s involvement with me is — I spend a lot of time just talking football with him. But it’s not on a — we don’t talk about game plans.”
Kelly said Brady sat in the coaches’ booth during a preseason game against the 49ers—in addition to Monday’s game—but didn’t interact with the coaches either time. He added that he talked to Brady over the summer about how he handled certain schemes and systems, but it hasn’t carried into the season.
“I just used him as a resource of, hey, when you faced a Mike Zimmer-type defense, what did you like protection-wise and play-wise?” Kelly said. “But on a weekly basis, he’s not game-planning with us or talking to us.”
Brady did not break any rules by being in the coaches box during Monday’s game. But his presence there comes after the NFL recently relaxed rules around Brady for his Fox gig, allowing him to attend production meetings virtually, after being barred from doing so for most of the 2024 season. He is still prohibited from watching practice or being in team facilities like other announcers are.
Former Raiders coach and NFL veteran Antonio Pierce said in an interview with Adam Schein on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio Thursday that it’s naive to think Brady hasn’t already used information gathered from his broadcasting responsibilities to help the Raiders.
“I think I would be uncomfortable if it was the other way around, to be honest with you,” Pierce said. “Because you’re not dealing with just a normal person. Tom Brady is the elite of the elite, one of the greatest quarterbacks, one of the greatest players in the game…It’s not hard for him to watch a few plays on a Friday practice or hear things in a production meeting and think, ‘Hmm,’ and have tidbits. And it would be foolish to think that he’s not going to share that with the Raiders.”
Brady is scheduled to call the Cowboys–Bears on Sunday for Fox. The Raiders play the Bears the following week.
