Tom Brady is tired of hearing about the perceived conflict of interest associated his roles as an NFL owner and he clapped back against his critics in an email newsletter on Wednesday.
It was a long form response from Brady, but his most aggressive accusations were directed at the character of anyone who would question his integrity in roles as minority owner of the Raiders and broadcaster at FOX Sports.
“I love football. At its core it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport; which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe. Rather, it’s the place from which my ethical duty emerges: to grow, evolve, and improve the game that has given me everything…” Brady wrote.
“When you live through uncertain and untrusting times like we are today, it is very easy to watch a person’s passions and profession intersect, and to believe you’re looking at some sort of dilemma. Because when you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest.”
Few have been more critical of Brady’s conflicting roles with the Raiders and FOX than NBC’s Mike Florio, and on Wednesday, Florio responded to Brady’s assertions.
From is PFT Live podcast, this was Florio’s response to Brady’s statement…
“I became aware during the show of an email that Tom Brady has sent out. He’s got a newsletter, you sign up for it, and you get it. And that’s the platform that he has used to address what was the story of the week last week.
His clear and obvious conflict of interest that has been hiding in plain sight for more than a year, but became obvious and evident when he was sitting in the coaching box last Monday night with the Las Vegas Raiders in their game against the Chargers. That’s when everybody recognized this doesn’t make sense. There’s something weird about this, and it’s called a conflict of interest.
And a conflict of interest in and of itself isn’t a problem. It’s what you do about the conflict of interest, how you avoid it, how it arises, how you handle it, how you manage it. Some conflicts of interest can be managed, some cannot be. But first you have to acknowledge that there is one, which Tom Brady will never do, which is a problem in and of itself.
He presumably paid someone a decent amount of money to give him some buzzwords to utilize over and over again in this newsletter. ‘Paranoia’ and ‘distrust’ are the labels applied to those like me and pretty much everyone else with basic common sense who recognize it’s impossible to be the best possible broadcaster for the NFL that you can be and the best possible owner of the Raiders that you can be.
Paranoia and distrust and then the other side of the coin is duty and integrity because that’s how he’s dealing with the situation. So look, we see this now everywhere. ‘Don’t trust the media. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t trust your own eyes. Trust me. I know better.’
Why is it not a conflict of interest?
‘Because I won’t let it be one. Because I put the interest of the game above my own interest. Yes, my personal interests would seem to conflict here, but I’m thinking about the game of football. I’m not thinking about myself. Please take my word for it.’
And… I have to address this and then I’ll shut up.
At the end, he says this… ‘When you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest.’
People who are like that, particularly to a chronic pathological degree, are telling on themselves. They’re showing you their worldview and how they operate. They’re admitting that they can only conceive of interests that are selfish, that they cannot imagine a person doing their job for reasons that are greater than themselves.
That is so fricking naive, Tom. Look, you know, I’m very wary of bullshit because I spent 19 years being lied to to my face by witnesses, by clients, by by other lawyers. And when you litigate for a living, you develop a very sensitive filter for when people are doing something they shouldn’t do. And that doesn’t mean I’m going around looking for all the stuff I can get away with. And I know that for some people, [they say]… ‘If you are focused on this, like if it’s some really weird thing, like you’re worried about that? Is that how you operate?’
But my worldview was framed by a generation of practicing law and being lied to and having to sift through bullcrap. So I’m very sensitive to when people are playing games with the truth. And I’m also committed to the truth. It’s possible to have both. So I’ll allow my actions and my own conflicts of interest or lack thereof to speak for themselves in that regard. But this thing, man, I’m surprised this is what he did.”
x: @raidersbeat
Just out of curiosity, was Tom Brady acting out of the purist live for the game when he was directing ball boys to deflate footballs and then destroying his cell phone? Or when his team was using stolen practice footage?
Or was he just just acting in the interests of Tom Brady? I will say there are certain people with personality disorders who don’t believe there is ever an difference