The NFL’s restrictions on Tom Brady as an analyst are getting more and more discussion, and some of that’s coming from interesting corners.
Those restrictions, first revealed by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham and then announced by the NFL itself as effective immediately before the start of the season while Brady’s ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders was still pending, drew further attention last week when that stake was approved, with Bleacher Report putting out a social media post highlighting all the different restrictions (which are standard for NFL owners, but new here given Brady’s unprecedented broadcaster/owner status):
Here’s how it’s going to impact his day-to-day life with his broadcasting gig 👀
(via @SethWickersham) pic.twitter.com/JUSORiNwxI
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 15, 2024
Again, while the restrictions aren’t new and have been in place throughout Brady’s broadcasting career to date, the approval of Brady’s ownership stake and that Bleacher Report post on it sparked a lot of further conversation. Some interesting perspectives on that came on ESPN’s second and most recent episode of the revived The Sports Reporters, which premiered Friday on ESPN’s YouTube channel. The conversation here starts around the 12:23 mark of the 41-minute full episode, which can also be seen below:
There, CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson spoke about the value she gets from production meetings. And she made some good points on how missing them could be hard for anyone on broadcasts both from a information standpoint, noting how she sometimes learns about injuries or other week-of intel before ESPN NFL insider and fellow panelist Adam Schefter, but can’t share it before he does, and a relationship-building standpoint, saying “I absolutely love being in these meetings, specifically because I love getting a chance to know the players. …It’s really that time for me to have one-on-one time.”
Following that, Sports Reporters host Jeremy Schaap brought up the idea of others from the Fox team being able to share information from those meetings and practices with Brady, and panelist and radio host Dan Patrick discussed that a bit and the idea of different rules for Brady (and how long he’ll broadcast, with Patrick saying Brady won’t be broadcasting for his full 10-year contract and wondering if he’ll still be broadcasting in five years). Andscape columnist Bill Rhoden then brought up the wider conversation on who is media and wondered if Brady will be really involved with the Raiders’ organization or just a figurehead.
But maybe the most notable comments here came from Schefter around the 16:08 mark. And these are especially interesting given Schefter’s role in the media and history with Brady, which we’ll discuss below. But first, what he said:
“I’d like to think, and maybe I’m being naive, I’d like to think that Tom Brady is going to be professional enough that he’s going to comport himself like the pro he’s always been. So that if he were in a production meeting and he knew that the Kansas City Chiefs’ wide receiver wasn’t playing, that he wouldn’t walk out of the meeting and be like, ‘Oh, let me call [Raiders’ HC] Antonio Pierce and let him know that that wide receiver’s not playing.’
“Like, do you really think that that’s what Tom Brady’s doing, that he’s using the information, that he wants to violate his job to try and help the team that he owns a small percentage of? I just don’t believe that.
“But beyond that, yes, he’ll have a role with the Raiders, to Dan’s point. I don’t know that [majority owner] Mark Davis calls him to consult on trading Davante Adams or whether they should hold on to Maxx Crosby. But Mark Davis himself said, look, they’re going to be in the quarterback market in 2025, he absolutely is going to lean on Tom Brady and ask him who he thinks is going to be a successful pro quarterback, and he’s going to want Brady to spend time with the quarterback that the Raiders do draft. He’s going to try to play to Tom’s strengths.
“So clearly there are going to be ways that they try to utilize Tom and the experiences that he’s had. But do I think that Tom as going to be deployed as some double spy in production meetings to get information to the Raiders that could help them win a game? Look, this isn’t Al Davis owning the team, this is a little bit different day and age. I just don’t believe that those things are going to happen.”
There are a number of interesting things in there. For one, Schefter is one of the people out there who has the most access to team-by-team detailed NFL information of the sort in discussion in production meetings, so he certainly can speak to that information and its value. And Schefter’s whole role is about the value of getting information early, so his perspective is well worth considering.
And Schefter’s comments doubting that Brady would immediately communicate information received from meetings to Pierce and the Raiders are notable. They also perhaps come with an undertone that while getting that information first is incredibly valuable for insiders (justifying their status) and maybe for bettors (placing bets before lines shift), it’s not necessarily as valuable for teams.
The lag between information revealed in a meeting and information revealed through an insider (as Wolfson discussed) isn’t always that large, and NFL injury reporting procedures usually mean teams have a good idea on that front well before a game. So Schefter’s points here are worth considering; perhaps it isn’t worth worrying too much about week-to-week injury information potentially being passed from Fox staffers to Brady to Pierce or others in the Raiders’ organization.
There are certainly areas where people with broadcaster status in closed-off portions of team facilities, or at practices (in the portions closed to media), or in production meetings could get information that could be more useful to opposing teams, though. On a single-game level, that could come from trick plays (something teams do sometimes, but far from always, clue broadcasters in on in production meetings, so they’re prepared when those trick plays happen) or from insights on offensive or defensive gameplans. On a larger level, it could come from information from pro or amateur scouting reports revealed either through those being posted somewhere or through comments about them from team personnel, or from wider information on offensive, defensive, or drafting philosophies.
And along those lines, it’s worth noting that Brady is not the first broadcaster this idea of conflicts of interest has come up with. In the NFL in 2017, Greg Olsen (who Brady eventually replaced on Fox’s No. 1 team this year) was playing with the Carolina Panthers, but called a game for Fox while he was injured. He became just the third active player (following Marcus Allen and Matt Hasselbeck) to call a game for that network, but that received an objection from Vikings’ then-GM Rick Spielman over these same kinds of information-passing concerns due to the Vikings set to play the Panthers shortly afterwards. At that point, ahead of the game, Olsen had some notable comments on how he wouldn’t go to meetings or practices:
“From the beginning we had no false notions that I would be in production meetings, meeting with players or coaches. We never would,” Olsen said. “I understand where everyone is coming from, but these are things we thought through.”
…”FOX called me a couple night ago to kind of tell me some of the concerns of the Vikings,” Olsen said. “I understood where they were coming from. I think once we made it clear to everyone involved that by no means did we ever intend to go to any practice, or being in a production meeting, interviewing the players, the coaches and getting behind the scenes info like what would traditionally happens in a production meeting, I think everyone kind of understood a little better.”
Olsen added: “I don’t know if the Vikings still do but the way we think about it — nothing I’m going to see from that booth a million miles in the sky is any different than what we would see on a game film. I’m going to watch that Rams-Vikings game a hundred times between now and then, getting ready to play them. Whether I see it live from the same angle or see it on film, I don’t think there’s really too much advantage that I or the Panthers would have.”
The Olsen history shows Fox has definitely dealt with this before (and was fine using a restricted broadcaster there, although that was on a lower team and just for one week). But it also illustrates that these concerns are not just popping up around Brady. And they’ve shown up in other sports as well, especially in the 2019 debate over then-Mets’ employee Jessica Mendoza’s clubhouse access or lack thereof in her ESPN broadcasting role. So there’s plenty of history to go with the discussion around Brady, and if these NFL restrictions will hinder his job and if they go far enough. And a particularly interesting aspect of Schefter’s comments is that some of this comes down to trusting Brady to “comport himself like the pro he’s always been.”
Can Brady be trusted to not share sensitive information obtained through his Fox colleagues with the Raiders? Different people will have different perspectives on that, with many of them probably correlated to their opinions on past Patriots’ scandals like Deflategate and Brady’s alleged role in those. And it’s maybe particularly interesting to see Schefter as the one defending Brady’s character here. Yes, they’re both Michigan alums (as is Wolfson), but Schefter is one media member who could bear a notable grudge against Brady if he desired to given the early-2022 situation around Brady’s retirement.
There, Schefter and ESPN colleague Jeff Darlington reported on a Saturday that Brady “is retiring,” only for Brady to go on his Let’s Go! radio show with Jim Gray and Larry Fitzgerald Monday and insist he hadn’t made any decision yet (essentially, calling Schefter and Darlington liars). Brady ultimately would announce his retirement the day after that, and exactly what happened there comes down to believing either Brady’s version of events or Schefter and Darlington’s.
Thus, presuming Schefter still stands by his own story there, that would mean that Brady lied to the public to dispute that story and announce his retirement in his preferred way that was more beneficial to him. Granted, the three-day gap there was far from the biggest deal in the world in terms of its tangible effects, so perhaps it could be shrugged off, and many people not particularly into the details of reporting probably never cared. But it’s fascinating that Schefter is the one now defending Brady’s character and professionalism when he would seem to have a compelling past reason not to.
At any rate, this discussion did show the value of the revived The Sports Reporters and its versatility. And it definitely prompted a worthwhile discussion on Brady and broadcasting restrictions.
[The Sports Reporters on YouTube]
