The Raiders were not too pleased that ESPN showed Tom Brady in their coaches’ box during Week 2’s “Monday Night Football” game against the Chargers, Joe Buck revealed.
Brady was in the coaches’ box and promptly shown on the Sept. 15 broadcast, reigniting conflict of interest concerns, as Brady is both a broadcaster on Fox’s NFL coverage and a minority owner of the Las Vegas franchise.
While Buck called the previous concerns over Brady’s involvement in production meetings “much ado about nothing,” the veteran broadcaster, during an appearance on “The Pivot” podcast, called Brady sitting in the Raiders coaches’ box with a headset on “a little too public to me.”
“It was the visual. Yeah, it was the visual,” Buck said.
“He wants to be involved. My god, the last person I’m telling what to do is Tom Brady. I know they [Raiders] weren’t happy that that got out — but he’s in a booth with a headset on. I mean, we’re all at least smart enough to know that there are cameras everywhere. They’re going to find you. So cameras found him and then it became a big thing. Just like everything else in the world, it goes away five seconds later and everybody moves on.”
The visuals caused a brief stir, and the NFL issued a statement the following day to dispel any concern that Brady’s presence had violated any league policy.
“Brady was sitting in the booth in his capacity as a limited partner,” the NFL said in a statement to CBS Sports in September. “All personnel sitting in the booth must abide by policies that prohibit the use of electronic devices other than league-issued equipment such as a Microsoft Surface Tablet for the Sideline Viewing System.”
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The NFL took steps last season — Brady’s first in the broadcast booth — that prevented him from being at practices or facilities in the days leading up to games for teams he would be calling games for.
Those rules have since been loosened to allow the former Patriots great and seven-time Super Bowl winner to take part in virtual production meetings.
Buck dismissed the idea that Brady would be getting any “insider information” from being involved in the production meeting.
“The whole inside information — I don’t know what he’s going to get that’s going to help him as an executive for the Raiders out of a production meeting,” Buck said. “Maybe if other owners don’t like it, then I guess that’s their prerogative, too.”