Was Tom Brady the selling point that convinced Mark Davis to hire Josh McDaniels?
We might never know, but it does sound like the plan was to bring Brady to the Raiders after one season of Derek Carr.
According to Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter, the Raiders believed Brady was going to be their quarterback in McDaniels’ second season with the team, but his report didn’t say when the focus shifted from Carr to Brady.
“I know inside the football management end, there was an expectation Tom Brady was coming [to the Raiders]. And if Tom Brady had been here with Josh McDaniels, I believe it would have ended up being a completely different situation,” Hondo said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.
“The Raiders thought he was coming. The Raiders had every reason to think he was coming,” he continued. And no, Tom Brady did not lie to anyone. He didn’t deceive anyone. Tom Brady didn’t. Tom Brady’s failure to become a Raider had nothing to do with any type of deceit or anything on Tom Brady’s part. Things happened that I’m not going to get into because they don’t matter. But things happened that it didn’t work out. I respect Tom Brady for why it didn’t work out.”
It would be interesting to know when the Raiders were first under the impression that Brady was going to be their next quarterback. Carr was benched for the final two games of the 2022 season, so it’s probably a safe assumption the team was confident that Brady was coming somewhere in that timeframe.
Hondo didn’t talk about what led Brady away from the Raiders, but we know the seven-time Super Bowl champion had a lot going on in his personal life at the time of his retirement.
Since his retirement from the league, Davis has working hard to bring Brady to the Raiders in the capacity of a minority-stake owner, but that process has run into a number of complications, as well.
x: @raidersbeat
This was pretty obvious at the time what the plan was. Was pretty easy to connect the dots around the bs here, and I bet DC did it too. But once Brady got divorced, the plan went out the door with the marriage… kids should always come first and thankfully Brady did the right thing for his kids sticking around in S Florida. McDaniels was a cringe hire from the start, but I get and know Davis mainly did it for his man crush Brady . Then McDaniels handling of DC situation was bad. Finally, his Brady back up plan was worse. Anybody who thought Jimmy G was still an answer should have his head and ego examined. Nothing against Jimmy as a person , by all accounts he is a great guy and teammate. I like DC , good guy but I don’t think he is a super bowl winning qb , to many up and down weeks with him. But I do believe he would have got that next years team with Coach Rich in the playoffs . I also think he would get this team in the playoffs . Where Uncle Rico Raider and AOC won’t . Wouldn’t it be fun if both the Saints and Raiders struggle at first and DC gets traded back to the Raiders and leads them to the playoffs with his buddies Devante and Maxx 😉
Hondo is incorrect when describing Mark Davis as a good businessman. A good businessman (not even a bad one) would have given Gruden the contract he did!! No good businessman would follow that horrible mistake up by hiring the friend tandem in McDaniels & Ziegler (just no possible way.) And the fact that Raiders ended up in Vegas was pure dumb luck n that only. Davis attempted to go to a number of other places n only due to his inability to make those other places work did Vegas fall into his lap. To give him credit that equates to his business prowess is irresponsible n incorrect. I can also point to some other things that calls into question the type of person Davis is but I will leave that for another time, but lets just say Davis has shown a tendency to lie n ridiculously so