Is Tom Brady facing the first major failure of his illustrious career? Fans and analysts fear so. After arriving with great fanfare to the Las Vegas Raiders, the seven-time Super Bowl champion has failed to deliver the transformation everyone expected. Instead, his first year with the team could end in a debacle.
In October 2024, the NFL approved Brady’s purchase of a minority stake in the Raiders. By January 2025, team owner Mark Davis declared that Brady’s arrival was exactly what the organization needed.
“Bringing Tom Brady was bringing somebody on the football side that I had been lacking here in the organization,” Davis said, recalling that Jon Gruden had not produced the expected results in that role.
In May, Davis reiterated:
“Tom was brought in initially for the football side of the organization. Someone who’s going to be there for a long, long time. Not as a president, but someone who’s got skin in the game.”
Six months later, things aren’t working out as Davis envisioned.
Why haven’t Tom Brady’s Raiders taken off?
Pro Football Talk analyst Mike Florio believes the main reason is Brady’s insistence on juggling too many responsibilities: his involvement with the Raiders, his work as a Fox analyst, and his personal business ventures.
Then there are his personnel decisions that haven’t paid off. Florio noted that Brady’s first choice for quarterback was Matthew Stafford. But when Stafford stayed with the Rams, Brady turned to Geno Smith instead.
Smith’s reunion with his former coach, Pete Carroll, has faltered. “The first scapegoat was offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, who was hired-many believe-at Brady’s recommendation,” Florio explained.
Kelly’s rise and fall indirectly reflect on Brady. “The overall performance of the team casts doubt on the value of leveraging Brady’s immense success as a player into building a properly functioning football organization,” Florio added.
Will Davis protect Brady in the worst-case scenario?
The Raiders’ 2-9 record is the second-worst in the NFL, ahead only of the Tennessee Titans at 1-10. Even so, Florio insists, “Davis won’t point a finger at Tom Brady. It will be someone else’s fault.”
Brady’s multiple commitments “may get him a pass-or they may increase the scrutiny,” Florio said. He noted that this isn’t usually a problem for minority owners, since their shares are typically just investments.
But for Brady, “who is specifically there to sprinkle Patriot Way DNA onto the Raiders, his ever-expanding portfolio of professional endeavors isn’t just an issue. It’s a problem.”
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