When the Las Vegas Raiders needed to hire a general manager and head coach, most NFL owners would have been deeply involved in every part of the process. But Raiders owner Mark Davis turned to Tom Brady for help.
Davis gave Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion and current NFL analyst, significant influence over these decisions after he joined the team as a minority owner in October. Brady led a committee that chose Pete Carroll as head coach and John Spytek as general manager.
“I’ve been telling you all since the beginning of this is that the one thing I know is what I don’t know,” Davis said. “I’m going to surround myself with people who do know these things, and I’m going to give them the opportunity to do their job. I give them vision, goals. We talk about those things, but results are what speak. It’s fairly easy to do that if you understand where you are.”
The Raiders are not where Davis wants them to be. He hopes to return the team to its former glory, like the days under his late father, Al, who created an organization that won three Super Bowls.
The Raiders have only made two playoff appearances since their last Super Bowl appearance 22 years ago, but Davis still wants the team to be great again.
That’s why Brady is involved. Davis also made Brady a minority owner of the Las Vegas Aces, who won the 2022 and 2023 WNBA championships after giving coach Becky Hammon a record-setting five-year, $5 million contract.
“We happen to have the greatest of all time to help us and to see clearly, and we’re going to lean on Tom as much as we possibly can for his insights because nobody has the insights that he has,” Carroll said. “He’s that unique. But the quarterback position is one of the positions on the team, and we’ve got to make it all fit together well.”
Tom Brady and Aidan Hutchinson before a playoff gameThe Raiders have a big challenge ahead: finding a quarterback in a tough AFC West where each of their rivals has already secured that position.
Patrick Mahomes is looking for his third straight Super Bowl title and fourth overall with the Kansas City Chiefs. Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers is highly talented. Bo Nix helped the Denver Broncos make the playoffs in his rookie year.
The Raiders have started the past two seasons with Aidan O’Connell as their quarterback, but he hasn’t shown he’s the long-term solution.
Spytek was part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ front office when they signed Baker Mayfield two years ago. Mayfield’s career turned around, and he helped the Bucs win the NFC South title in back-to-back seasons.
Mayfield followed Brady as the starting quarterback in Tampa, after Brady helped the team win a Super Bowl in 2020. Spytek and Brady were also college teammates at Michigan.
“I had a chance to be around in my opinion the greatest player ever, and it was a love of the game and a competitive desire that just didn’t allow him to quit,” Spytek said. “He was never out of a fight. He was willing to do things that the ordinary football player or person wasn’t willing to do. We’re going to turn over every stone to find that leader for this team, too.”
Brady’s role will go beyond just finding a quarterback. “This is his opportunity to put his stamp on a franchise, and so we’re excited to represent that, bringing him into it,” Carroll said.
“Mark has done an incredible job to figure out how to formulate this plan so that we can all fit together. (Brady has) been involved and he’s going to be involved, and we’re going to lean on him like crazy.”
Now, the big question is whether this plan will work. Will Brady end up acting as the de facto general manager, or will he mostly offer input on major decisions? Only time will tell.
“There’s a lot that goes into this, but to think about how fortunate we are to have Tom Brady with us,” Carroll said, “it’s just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
