Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels worked in New England for each of the six Super Bowls that Tom Brady won there. As McDaniels tried to win a seventh against the Seahawks in February, Brady declared that he didn’t have a “dog in the fight.”
Since then, speculation has emerged that Brady, a Raiders owner, helped Seattle in its effort to beat New England. Patriots coach Mike Vrabel recently shrugged at that possibility, given that Brady was preparing to hire Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.
McDaniels had a chance to chime in on Friday, during an appearance on WEEI in Boston.
Asked if he thinks Brady helped the Seahawks, McDaniels said, “I have no idea.”
McDaniels then was asked whether it would bother him, if that had happened. Said McDaniels, “I wouldn’t have a dog in that fight.”
It’s the ideal response, turning Brady’s clunky throwaway line back at him.
Regardless of how current and former Patriots players and coaches may feel about Brady’s neutrality, Patriots fans were and still are pissed off about it. With one comment, he went from being one of them to being an outsider — even though his statue is now parked outside Gillette Stadium.
It makes his anticipated return to Foxborough to call the Week 9 game between the Packers and the Patriots even more intriguing. How will he be received that day? Even if most fans cheer his return, it likely won’t be universal among fans who feel betrayed by Brady’s decision to not publicly support the Patriots — and the possibility that he privately helped the Seahawks win the game.
The fact that the issue came up during two separate Friday interviews on WEEI (one with McDaniels and one with linebacker Robert Spillane) shows that the locals haven’t forgotten. Which surely means that many of them haven’t forgiven.
The Raiders have to get better at wide receiver in a hurry.
That’s the word from head coach Klint Kubiak, who said in reviewing Thursday’s preseason game that the wide receiver group needs improvement between now and Week One. Asked what he learned about his wide receivers at the joint practice and preseason game with the Texans, Kubiak sounded decidedly negative.
“I learned a lot, that we have to get a lot better very fast,” Kubiak said. “We took a step backwards. That doesn’t mean we can’t go forward, but right now we are trying to find someone that is accountable and can help us on Sunday. Still looking.”
The Raiders’ current starting receivers are Tre Tucker, Jack Bech and Jalen Nailor. It’s unclear whether Kubiak expects to bring in wide receivers from the outside or whether he wants the current group to get better, but there’s not a lot of time for them to get better between now and the Raiders’ Week One game against the Dolphins.
When Patriots legend Tom Brady, whose statue sits outside the team’s stadium, said before the Seahawks-Patriots Super Bowl “I don’t have a dog in the fight,” New England linebacker Robert Spillane said of the remark, "[P]ersonally it makes me sick.”
Appearing earlier today on WEEI in Boston, Spillane was asked if it irritated other players in the locker room, too.
“It irritated me, and it made me feel sad for him, spending 20 years here, obviously, went on to do amazing, great things, not only on the football field but in the community, and to say that he had no care in the world, it irritated me,” Spillane said. “It made me feel sad for him. But at the end of the day, that was just my personal opinion. Everyone else has their own opinions in the locker room.”
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel recently addressed Brady’s remark, taking a more pragmatic approach: Brady has moved on, he’s with the Raiders now.
And if Brady did indeed collaborate with the Seahawks before the game, Vrabel understood that, too. Brady’s team was about to hire Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak as its head coach. It was better for the Raiders if Kubiak arrived with a brand-new Super Bowl ring.
Especially since it’s been 43 years since the last time the Raiders won one of their own.
After Maxx Crosby’s tumultuous offseason, he is set to play for the Raiders in 2026.
And while some starters may be on the field for Las Vegas for the club’s preseason finale next week, Crosby won’t be one of them.
“I think all players need the reps,” head coach Klint Kubiak said in his Friday press conference. “I’m not going to be giving him any, though.”
Crosby is coming off a torn meniscus, which he had surgery to repair. The Ravens backed out of their trade for Crosby in part because of long-term concerns about the knee.
In 15 games last year, Crosby recorded 10.0 sacks, a career-high 28 tackles for loss, six passes defensed, and his first career interception. He was selected to his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl.
Raiders first-year head coach Klint Kubiak has said that his team’s starting quarterback position is Kirk Cousins’ to lose.
But even after this week’s joint practice and preseason game with the Texans, he’s still not ready to name Cousins the Week 1 starter.
While some of that may have to do with the progress displayed by No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza, Kubiak said in his Friday press conference that it’s more about his general philosophy.
“I just don’t think it ever benefits a player to know that they have a spot secured,” Kubiak said. “If there’s always a little bit of uneasiness about that, that benefits the whole team — the player and the team.”
Cousins did not play on Thursday night after going through the joint practice in Houston earlier in the week. Mendoza had an up-and-down night playing the entire first half, finishing 8-of-15 for 86 yards with no touchdowns and a pick six.
Kubiak said he was pleased with the rookie when watching the tape.
“I really liked what he did on third down,” Kubiak said. “We were only 1-of-5 on third down in the first half. However, we did drop the ball twice, and we threw one short of the sticks on third-and-long. He had really good ball placement on the first third down of the game, with a guy in his face. So, on the critical downs, I thought he was playing his best.
“There are things that we must get corrected that will be addressed ASAP.”
What Mendoza needs most now, Kubiak said, is reps. But those are going to be a lot harder to come by in the regular season if Mendoza is not the starting quarterback — which, at this point, he is not slated to be.
Kubiak admitted that’s a challenging factor in Mendoza’s development.
“We have experience as coaches on developing guys when they’re not starting a game, if they don’t start a game,” Kubiak said. “So, it’s [arriving] early, leaving late. It’s using some technological tools at your disposal. But it’s really a lot of [QBs] coach [Mike] Sullivan spending some early mornings and long nights with Fernando and Aiden [O’Connell]. And then you can build in young-guy reps into your practices.
“There’s things you can do. It’s never as good as getting all the reps in practice. But you do the best you can with what you’ve got.”
Las Vegas will host San Francisco next Thursday for the clubs’ final preseason contest.
