It wasn’t Tom Brady.
Radio host Zach Gelb followed up directly with Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald after Friday’s Dan Patrick Show interview and asked him to clarify who the unnamed person with a “conflict of interest” was — the one who Macdonald said had helped the Seahawks before Super Bowl LX but whose identity he couldn’t publicly disclose.
“Mike told me it wasn’t Brady that he was talking about in the interview,” Gelb wrote.
I reached out to Mike Macdonald to get clarification on his comments on the @dpshow. I asked if @TomBrady was the person with the “conflict of interest” that gave input to the Seahawks before the Super Bowl. Mike told me it wasn’t Brady that he was talking about in the interview. https://t.co/v6CYahtHpC
— Zach Gelb (@ZachGelb) July 10, 2026
As we covered Friday, Macdonald’s cryptic comments on The Dan Patrick Show — “Probably can’t mention one guy that really helped us out that had some conflict of interest” — set off a wave of speculation pointing directly at Brady. When Patrick guessed Bill Belichick, Macdonald quickly denied it. Brady filled in the blank for almost everyone who heard the exchange, given his pre-Super Bowl neutrality claims that had already irritated former Patriots teammates, his Fox broadcasting role, and the timing of his hiring of Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak as the Raiders’ head coach — all of which made him a logical fit for the “conflict of interest” description.
Macdonald’s denial to Gelb clears Brady but raises an obvious follow-up: who was it? The “conflict of interest” framing still points to someone with competing loyalties heading into the Super Bowl, whether it be a network broadcaster, a former coach, or someone with deep ties to the Patriots organization. Given the conflict-of-interest accusations that have followed Brady throughout his tenure at Fox, he seemed like the obvious answer. But Macdonald hasn’t elaborated, and the identity of the unnamed advisor remains unknown.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.