When it comes to Tom Brady’s post-playing career, the seven-time Super Bowl champion has filled the football-sized void in his life with two different but intertwined ventures: lead NFL analyst at Fox and co-owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.
It didn’t take long for many to realize that the two roles possessed a massive of conflict of interest with each other.
But while precautions have already been taken to mitigate Brady’s competing interests as someone who’s supposed to be objectively calling games in a league he also owns a team in, never has the issues with his dual roles been more apparent than they are heading into this weekend’s Divisional Round.
With Fox set to air Saturday’s matchup between the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders, Brady will be on the call in his usual role as the network’s color commentator. That means the three-time NFL MVP will be tasked with calling a game featuring one of the NFL’s hottest head coaching candidates in Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, all the while the team he co-owns is in the midst of searching for a new head coach.
How convenient.
While some biases are inevitable when it comes to former players calling games — Brady didn’t exactly sound like a neutral observer calling Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers earlier this season — the idea of him calling a Lions game at this point in the NFL calendar raises a whole new set of questions and concerns.
Will Brady be willing to criticize the Lions offense if need be, knowing that the team he owns is reportedly “enamored” with Johnson as a coaching candidate? And even with his restrictions in place as a result of his ownership role, what sort of access to the Detroit offensive coordinator might Brady’s preparations afford him that other NFL teams wouldn’t have the same access to?
Tom Brady will get to spend some time around Ben Johnson next weekend https://t.co/CCtuIgQFgx
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) January 13, 2025
By this point, the obvious issue with Brady’s dual roles is nothing new, with many believing it’s now only a matter of time until he’s forced to choose one or the other (which one he’d pick also seems clear). Still, never has it been more apparent than it is in the days leading into Lions-Commanders, with perhaps the only surprising part about all of this being that it took until the Divisional Round of his first season at Fox for such an obvious example of his newfound conflict of interest to make itself apparent.
