On the surface, the NFL’s Tom Brady Broadcast Rules seem like a restriction. At a deeper level, the league might have done Brady another favor.
Because he’s an owner of the Raiders, Brady can’t attend production meetings or practices as part of his job with Fox. He can’t even enter team facilities.
It keeps him from being the best broadcaster he can be, robbing him of important access and the insights that would flow from it. Given his history of always wanting to be the best at everything he does, Brady presumably objects to having one hand tied behind his back.
There’s a chance he’s fine with it. There’s a chance he welcomes the reduced workload that comes from the league’s restrictions on his preparations.
That’s not conjecture. It’s a plausible explanation for the way things have played out, one that’s making its way through NFL circles.
Bolstering this belief is the fact that the league won’t let teams waive the prohibition on Brady attending production meetings. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the Bills wanted to talk to Brady in advance of Sunday’s game in Seattle, which Brady will handle for Fox. The league said no.
Why would the league say no, if the Bills are willing to let him participate? The rules are presumably there to protect teams against infiltration by the owner of another team, someone who would have a fiduciary duty to do anything he can to help the team he owns. If a team like the Bills has no problem with Brady participating in a production meeting, why should it be prohibited?
Other teams, we’re told, have been willing to waive the Tom Brady Broadcast Rules. The league has declined.
Teams have asked the league for a copy of the rule or policy or memo that articulates the do’s and don’ts of the Tom Brady Broadcast Rules. We’re told there is no actual rule or policy or memo. For some, the only concrete information on the matter has come from reading PFT (those bastards).
Last weekend, Brady went to the Chiefs’ hotel to interview quarterback Patrick Mahomes. That was allowed. It’s unclear why.
Maybe it was allowed because Brady wanted to do it. Maybe he doesn’t really want to go to practices or attend production meetings or talk on the phone to coaches and players in order to best prepare for games.
That’s the conclusion that was reached by at least one person involved in efforts to get the league to waive the Tom Brady Broadcast Rules. It’s not that the league is keeping him down. It’s that Brady doesn’t want to put in the work, and that the restrictions provide him with a quick and easy excuse to avoid doing it.
This isn’t my opinion. It’s the opinion of someone who has been involved in trying to get to the bottom of why the rules are what they are, why they aren’t in writing, and why they were waived when Brady wanted to interview Mahomes but not in other situations.
That’s the key. Brady wanted to interview Mahomes. Brady gets to do what he wants to do. For the things he doesn’t want to do, all he has to do is hide behind the rules that prevent him from doing them.
