By Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson

NEW ORLEANS -- Tom Brady was sitting in the Fox broadcast booth last month when, midway through the first quarter of a Detroit Lions playoff game, he took a moment to address his other job.

As a new minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, Brady was playing a pivotal role in the team's search for a coach. And one of the leading candidates, Detroit offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, just happened to be standing on the sideline below him. It was all too awkward to ignore.

So with mounting scrutiny around how he handled his conflicting duties, Brady and his Fox announcing partner Kevin Burkhardt faced the camera to address the odd situation.

"It's just been a great learning experience," Brady said in the middle of a game when he seemed to go out of his way to avoid mentioning Johnson by name. "What you realize is the league is full of great potential."

Brady is set to make his Super Bowl commentary debut during Sunday's Eagles-Chiefs clash, and in many ways nobody is more qualified. As a quarterback, Brady's seven Super Bowl victories are more than any single franchise has won. But in other ways, he's a rookie all over again -- and the stakes are even higher now that he has traded in his helmet for a headset.

Both Brady's contract with Fox and his stake in the Raiders are worth hundreds of millions. And after a season of calling games that were rarely close, he's out to prove that he can do both at the same time in the biggest game of the year.

"We're definitely getting 100% of Tom Brady," says Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks. "The X's and O's, nobody knows better. But I think that extra level that we've heard from him this year about leadership, especially development of players...that could be a bonus."

Brady's role with the Raiders meant that he was subject to unusual restrictions as a broadcaster. It's typical for people in his job to spend the week before a game in meetings with players, coaches and executives to learn the ins and outs of the team and prepare themselves to educate viewers.

But that's a level of access that would never be afforded to an opposing owner. So during a protracted approval process for his stake in the Raiders, there were special rules instituted to bar him from those meetings and quell any concerns that Brady might pick up on competitive secrets. In effect, Brady had to call games with one hand tied behind his back.

On Sunday, however, those rules have been suspended for a single game, according to the NFL. (Never mind that the Chiefs are one of the Raiders' divisional rivals.)

"Tom has been incredibly cooperative. He calls frequently about it and says, 'Am I doing OK?'" said commissioner Roger Goodell. "He's serious about making sure that he separates these two and doesn't put the league or anyone in a position of conflict."

Shanks says the restrictions on Fox's big investment -- the 10-year deal with Brady is worth a reported $375 million -- weren't a surprise. But that doesn't mean he thinks they're a good thing.

"It's better for the league to have Tom have the access," Shanks said. "What you do in those production meetings is you go in and you get fun, personal anecdotes."

What recent weeks have laid bare, though, is that despite being a minority owner with the Raiders, Brady is far from a silent partner. Majority owner Mark Davis delegated much of the search for a coach and general manager to Brady. Davis even acknowledged that adding the retired quarterback brought a level of football expertise that the Raiders brass had been lacking.

And Brady's fingerprints will only become clearer the longer he is in the job. For a new general manager, the Raiders have already hired John Spytek, a teammate of Brady's at the University of Michigan and an executive with the Buccaneers when Brady won his last Super Bowl. And at head coach, the team tapped Pete Carroll, who plans to use Brady's assistance to recruit a new quarterback.

"We're going to lean on Tom as much as we possibly can for his insights because nobody has the insights he has," Carroll said.

But before Brady could get back to mapping out the future of the Raiders, he flew to New Orleans this week to map out his final game of the season. And Shanks said that his preparation behind the scenes is what has impressed him most. Brady is constantly tinkering with his approach, down to details such as the layout of his monitors and how closely he stands to Burkhardt.

He also pointed out how far Brady has come with his ability to spot complex wrinkles and break them down in simple ways for fans at home. One of those moments came during the playoff game between Detroit and Washington: Brady realized that the Lions had too many defenders on the field before the players had.

"Need a timeout," Brady shouted into his microphone that day. "Twelve on the field, time out. Time out!...On no, what are they doing?"

That penalty against the Lions allowed the Commanders to convert a critical fourth down on their way to an upset victory. As far as Shanks was concerned, it was yet another example that even without a football in his hands, Brady's football brain never stops whirring.

Write to Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com and Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2025 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

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