Minority owner Tom Brady will have major voice in the operation of the Raiders

When the NFL’s owners approved Raiders minority owner Tom Brady for limited membership in Club Oligarch, they might or might not have known that he plans to have a major voice in the operation.

Regardless, he does. And he will.

Monday’s comments from coach Pete Carroll and owner Tom Brady make that abundantly clear, if it wasn’t already. Carroll said he plans to lean heavily on Brady. Davis said Brady becomes the replacement for Jon Gruden as the “person on the football side that would bring stability to the organization.”

Carroll might wonder why that isn’t him, since the last organizational stabilizer was, you know, the head coach. And the whole thing could get interesting and possibly awkward, if (for example) the absentee landlord’s ideas about the direction of the franchise conflict with the opinions of the day-in, day-in manager who is, you know, managing the team.

Brady’s primary job with Fox, which he has defiantly vowed to continue through its 10-year term, will keep him occupied. He won’t be able to even attend most Raiders games. Carroll will be the one steering the ship, all the time.

Carroll surely has the people skills to manage a two-owner situation, but it will be a far cry from the relative autonomy he enjoyed under the late Paul Allen and then his sister, Jody, in Seattle.

The benefit for the Raiders comes from the access Brady will have (and be handsomely paid to use) when it comes to coaches and players. While he can’t attend practices or production meetings, Brady can talk to anyone at any time. And people will return his calls, because he’s Tom LFG Brady.

No other owner, majority or minority, has that kind of insight about the league’s other teams. Imagine, for example, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie calling around to players and coaches and traveling around to a different game every week, talking to coaches and players on the field before the game.

For Brady, the effort will help his effort to make the Raiders more competitive. And Fox will be paying him $37.5 million per year to do it.

Brady will learn much more than what the film reveals about players. He’ll gain important insights while also developing relationships that will provide a valuable foundation when it’s time every offseason to identify free agents and recruit them to Las Vegas.

And when the Raiders move from the group of 10 or so teams that none of the other owners need to worry about into the group of 10 or so teams that everyone has to worry about, they’ll have only themselves to blame. By then, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

But, go ahead, keep saying that there’s no conflict of interest. And keep playing the #whatabout game with anyone who dares to point out that the whole thing adds up to a competitive advantage for Brady and the Raiders that could turn out to be far more beneficial than taking a little air out of some footballs.

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