Alex Smith: Jon Gruden had ‘unfettered access’ to Chiefs when calling games

There’s a difference between what Jon Gruden did on Monday Night Football and what Tom Brady’s doing, juggling his minority ownership duties with being an NFL on Fox broadcaster. In fact, there aren’t many similarities.

Gruden had connections remaining in the NFL, being that he was a branch on the Andy Reid coaching tree. So, whenever the Chiefs were on Monday Night Football during Smith’s five seasons in Kansas City, Gruden had what the former No. 1 overall pick described as “unfettered access” to the organization.

That’s because there was a level of trust there, that same level of trust applied to the production meetings, because Smith knew the relationship Gruden and his head coach had. And, therefore, was probably willing to be a bit more candid with Gruden, Mike Tirico, and later Sean McDonough.

“When I was in Kansas City when Jon Gruden would come around and call our games, I mean, he had unfettered access,” Smith said on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown this week. “He’d be in our meeting rooms, on our practice fields; he might as well have been wearing Chiefs gear. And then when I had my production meetings with him, there was a level of transparency that I was comfortable enough because of his relationship with Andy Reid.”

“Let’s face it, Tom Brady would never bend the rules right?”

Rex Ryan is not too worried about Tom Brady in the coaches booth 😅 pic.twitter.com/mqfUgJ7E7k

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) September 21, 2025

On the other hand, that same level of information and trust probably won’t exist with Brady. He’s made his relationships like Gruden did, but unlike the former Raiders coach, Brady has something to gain by sharing inside information. And being that he was in the coaches’ box on a headset for everyone and their mother to see on Monday Night Football, whatever you’re sharing with him is probably getting shared with everyone in Las Vegas.

There’s a competitive factor here; Brady has skin in the game. Gruden, although he had aspirations — and still does — to return to coaching, wasn’t going to share information with teams he might coach against someday. Brady already did, according to Antonio Pierce, because he’s literally invested in the Las Vegas Raiders’ success.

But some coaches aren’t worried about production meeting secrets getting out anyway. Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said there are no real secrets in the NFL, while Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson pointed out that Brady could figure out their tendencies from film study regardless of what they tell him in meetings.

But even though Smith was comfortable being transparent with Gruden because of the Reid connection, he’d take the opposite approach with Brady.

“I’m not giving him information,” Smith said of Brady. “I’m not giving him access to anything if a team that’s going to play him next week…. I would instruct my players to be careful. He’s sitting in the coaches’ box with the headset on. This isn’t some passive owner. He’s very involved in this. He has his day job where he calls these games. There is a level of intimacy I’m saying when you do call these games, depending on your relationship with these organizations.

It’s not really about access levels or what the NFL allows; it’s about incentives. Gruden had every reason to protect whatever information he gathered because burning bridges would damage his broadcasting career and any future coaching aspirations. Brady has every reason to share that same information because it could help his investment perform better.

Of course, it’d be naive to believe that Gruden didn’t use some of that information once he returned to coaching and was in the same division as Reid. But Gruden’s incentives were still fundamentally different from Brady’s.