Raiders minority owner Tom Brady has worked hard in recent months to squash rumors that he has been involved in personnel decisions, but the outside consensus is that he was very much involved in the team’s quarterback search.
It raised a few eyebrows when the Raiders repeatedly chose to not draft Shedeur Sanders, who has a personal and business relationship with Brady, and it’s not hard to understand why Brady wouldn’t want to be associated with that decision.
Then there was a report in June that Brady was “not in favor” of signing Sam Darnold, and that story from The Athletic’s Mike Silver was a reminder that Brady was surely in the middle of the quarterback decisions in Las Vegas from the moment he arrived (and probably sooner).
Nevertheless, Brady has been adamant that he hasn’t been involved in personnel decisions.
“I wasn’t a part of any evaluation process,” Brady said in May, but Sports Illustrated insider Albert Breer reported this week that Brady secretively made a trip to Las Vegas to discuss the team’s offseason quarterback options.
“Even if [Brady] isn’t in there every day, and he’s very sensitive about that, and a story I heard [was] he helped with their quarterback evaluation because obviously, who wouldn’t want Tom [helping in a quarterback search]?” Breer said on the Rich Eisen Show on Wednesday.
“So he flew in incognito for a day to sit down with the front office and the coaches to go through quarterbacks and look at quarterbacks on tape, and left, and no one knew about it,” Breer continued. “My understanding is the reason why is because he knows if he shows up, he takes all the oxygen out of the room. He knows if he shows up… he doesn’t’ want the perception out there… that he’s lording over everything. But he certainly has an influence of the types of players they are bringing in.”
It has been said that Brady was privately complementary of North Dakota State quarterback Cam Miller going into the draft, but it would be interesting to know what he liked about Miller and why the Raiders made the decision to wait on Miller rather than draft one of the higher profile quarterbacks.
Those details might not reach the public anytime soon, but if Miller’s NFL career takes off, it probably won’t take long for Brady and others to put their name on the pick a little more than what we’ve seen to this point.
x: @raidersbeat
Can’t wait for Tom Brady to require all the Raiders to eat avocado toast and drink Makers Mark.
He secretly flew in like JB 007.