Chip Kelly on Tom Brady: We don’t talk game plans

Tom Brady’s presence in the Raiders’ coaching booth and the report from ESPN’s Peter Schrager that Brady talks to offensive coordinator Chip Kelly two or three times a week have caused a bit of a stir.

In addition to highlighting Brady’s conflict of interest as a Raiders minority owner and Fox broadcaster, reporters have raised questions to Las Vegas personnel this week about Brady’s involvement with the club.

After head coach Pete Carroll addressed it earlier this week, Kelly had his turn in his Thursday press conference.

Kelly was asked to start his media session whether or not anything regarding the reporting during the MNF broadcast about him and Brady had been taken out of context.

“I don’t know what was said on the broadcast because we don’t watch the games. But Tom’s involvement with me is — I spend a lot of time just talking football with him,” Kelly said in his press conference. “But it’s not on a — we don’t talk about game plans.”

Kelly noted that they spent time over the summer on Zooms with Kelly asking Brady various things about matchups.

“I just used him as a resource of, hey, when you faced a Mike Zimmer-type defense, what did you like protection-wise and play-wise?” Kelly said. “But on a weekly basis, he’s not game-planning with us or talking to us.”

Monday night’s game wasn’t the first time Brady had been in the coach’s booth, as he was there for the preseason game against San Francisco.

“But he doesn’t talk to the coaches when he’s up there,” Kelly said. “I think he’s just watching football.”

Kelly reiterated that Brady’s not intimately involved in Las Vegas’ offense.

“In terms of weekly game plans, that’s not a collaboration that we do,” Kelly said. “He’s also a busy guy, so I haven’t even thought of using him to do that, and I don’t think you can. So, our staff does all that.

“But he’s been a guy that I can talk football with, just shooting it about, hey, have you ever faced a two-trap defense or the inverted Tampa two that everybody’s running now. If you’ve ever [seen it], what are your thoughts about that? Things like that. But we don’t talk game plan at all or any of that stuff, in terms of on a weekly basis.”

The Raiders will take on the Commanders this week before hosting the Bears in Week 4. Brady will call the game between Chicago and Dallas for Fox this weekend.

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