When it was revealed that Tom Brady was going to buy a stake in the Las Vegas Raiders, it wasn’t clear if he was getting into ownership to be an active or a passive owner. That was quickly answered this offseason as it’s clear that Brady has a major say over the team’s football operations.
It’s likely not a coincidence that the Raiders have hired John Spytek as general manager, who worked with Brady while they were both with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and were teammates at Michigan. It still remains to be seen how involved Brady will be with the day-to-day operations but it’s sounding like he wants to keep working in the football world.
He gave some insight into why joining the Raiders was important for him.
“I wish I could’ve played football my entire life, but 23 years was long enough,” Brady said on the Jan. 22 episode of “The Herd.” “I got tired of really taking the hits and I wanted to spend as much time as I could with the kids. So, really being involved with the Raiders gives me an opportunity to be involved with football for the rest of my life. I really love teamwork, I always have. I love seeing other people succeed. I really hope other former players get opportunities to be involved with teams.”
Brady Talks Offensive vs. Defensive Head Coaches
The first important job for Brady is helping the Raiders find the right head coach. The team went hard after former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson but he chose the Chicago Bears.
There’s been talk that Brady might want an offensive-minded head coach but the Raiders have interviewed several coaches with defensive backgrounds. He spoke about why he’s not concerned with whether or not a coach has an offensive or defensive background.
“There’s such a jigsaw puzzle when you look at a lot of different organizations,” Brady said. “Whether it’s a football organization or basketball or baseball, I think it’s a collective group of people and you’ve got to figure out that puzzle of what exactly fits. If you do have a defensive head coach, like Bill was, Bill was a great manager. Bill did a great job of coaching the coaches. He had high expectations. I think he had a background on offense. He didn’t necessarily throw all of his ideas out there, but he did have a general understanding of how we should perform on offense and he had expectations for that.
“This whole puzzle with an offensive coach, defensive coach â it should be about great people doing great things, working collaboratively, being humble, learning every year,” Brady added. “You’re always trying to up your game every year. I feel like that’s what I always try to do as a player. I don’t see that as any different in football or in business. Everybody should always be looking to improve and understand where weaknesses are, how to improve their weaknesses and continue to build on their strengths.”
How Will Brady Pivot?
It seemed like Brady to make a big splash by landing Johnson, who has been a top head coaching candidate for a couple of years now. Now that he has chosen to go elsewhere, it’ll be interesting to see how he pivots.
Now that Spytek is in as general manager, perhaps Brady will let him figure out the head coach but he should still have a role. This isn’t a great pool of candidates with Mike Vrabel, Johnson and Aaron Glenn off the board.
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