Klint Kubiak walked into his introductory press conference as the Raiders’ new head coach on Tuesday and went out of his way to talk about Tom Brady before anyone even asked. Brady wasn’t on the lectern. He wasn’t in the building. But Kubiak made it clear that working with the Raiders minority owner — who also happens to be Fox’s lead NFL analyst — was a major reason he took the job in the first place.
“Really excited to work with Tom,” Kubiak said. “He made the mistake of giving me his cell phone number, so he might wish he never did that because I’m going to be calling him a lot.”
The joke got a laugh from reporters. But the substance beneath it isn’t particularly funny if you’re one of the 31 other teams competing against the Raiders. Kubiak didn’t say he’d consult with Brady occasionally or lean on him when issues come up. Instead, he’s treating Brady like a resource he plans to use constantly, and he doesn’t seem to care that doing so publicly creates questions about how much information Brady is gathering from the games he calls every Sunday for Fox.
Kubiak signed with the Raiders three days after winning Super Bowl LX as Seattle’s offensive coordinator, just two weeks after Brady spent an entire NFC Championship Game broadcast praising everything Kubiak called, which pretty much amounted to what Awful Announcing’s Sean Keeley described as a “tongue bath.”
The 38-year-old first-time head coach tried to frame his relationship with Brady as a football collaboration between people with different backgrounds. He grew up in the Shanahan/Kubiak system through his father, Gary, who won a Super Bowl as Denver’s head coach, running a version of the West Coast offense. Brady spent 20 years in Bill Belichick’s Erhardt-Perkins system before playing in Bruce Arians’ vertical passing attack in Tampa Bay. Kubiak said working with Brady means pulling ideas from someone who’s seen football from angles most coaches haven’t.
“What I’m excited about is that we really have different offensive backgrounds — how we can pull ideas from each other,” Kubiak said. “But, obviously, he’s the greatest that’s ever done it. In the interview process, just the passion that he spoke with on all things football got me excited about the opportunity to work with him.”
That sounds great until you remember Brady is still under contract with Fox for nine more years at $375 million.
Chip Kelly, the Raiders’ offensive coordinator last season under Pete Carroll, told ESPN he spoke with Brady “two to three times per week, going through film and the game plan.” Carroll later said that the report wasn’t accurate, but he also said Brady’s presence has been “felt by the Raiders” and described him as a “great asset.” John Spytek, the Raiders general manager who worked with Brady in Tampa Bay, told ESPN in April that Brady’s voice has been “invaluable” in roster decisions. Brady was shown on ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast sitting in the Raiders coaching booth wearing a headset during a Week 2 loss to the Chargers, looking uncomfortable when he realized he was being broadcast.
The NFL said Brady didn’t violate any rules by being in the booth because owners are allowed there. That technically true answer doesn’t address the larger issue, which is that Brady’s dual roles create situations where teams don’t know what information he’s gathering from them as a broadcaster versus what he’s using to help the Raiders. Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson brushed it off before playing the Raiders this past season, saying no “trade secrets” would be exchanged. But that’s not the point.
The point is, teams shouldn’t have to wonder about it in the first place. But they might also just not care.
The Athletic surveyed 76 NFL players in late January and found that 84.2% were unbothered by Brady’s role, with many pointing out that the Raiders sucked last season despite his involvement. “If he’s getting information and sharing it with the Raiders, so what? They sucked anyway,” one player said. The Raiders went 4-13 under Carroll and fired him after one season, which is how they ended up with the first overall pick and why Kubiak is their head coach now.
But the Raiders being terrible doesn’t mean Brady’s access isn’t a problem. It just means his influence hasn’t produced tangible results yet. Kubiak, making it clear he plans to call Brady constantly, suggests that influence is about to expand, not shrink. Kubiak called working with Brady “one of the main draws” for taking the job in Las Vegas. He’s not treating Brady like a ceremonial owner who shows up for big games and shakes hands with sponsors. He’s treating him like someone who’s going to help him build an offense around Fernando Mendoza and Ashton Jeanty.
Which would be fine if Tom Brady wasn’t also spending every Sunday calling games for Fox and getting access to information from teams the Raiders have to play.