The Raiders haven’t won a playoff game since 2002. The Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game since 2000. The effort to change things up has included, for the Raiders, adding Tom Brady as an owner and, for the Dolphins, hiring Troy Aikman.
The fact that both are employed as the top game analysts at Fox and ESPN, respectively, creates obvious conflict-of-interest issues. Although the NFL would say, as to each of them, “Where’s the conflict?,” the application of restrictions to their ability to enter team facilities and attend practice shows that the two roles don’t mesh.
The league dropped the ball by not telling Brady to pick a lane, when he was trying to get his bargain-basement slice of the Raiders approved. And with Brady blazing the trail, Aikman (who had long aspired to be a G.M.) decided to walk the same path.
It’s a massive benefit for the Raiders and Dolphins to have a not-secret agent roaming the NFL countryside, attending games and talking to people around the league as part of their broadcasting jobs. No other team enjoys that kind of insight.
Aikman acknowledged the basic fact earlier this year, when it became clear that his short-term consulting gig would become a longer-term arrangement.
“I think the Dolphins were wise in understanding my relationships around the league,” Aikman said. “And knowing that I have information that they don’t have or can’t get. And I think they were smart in taking advantage of that — whether it was through me or through somebody else.”
As to Brady, one Seahawks source recently suggested that the Raiders wouldn’t have hired Klint Kubiak as the team’s latest head coach but for Brady’s access to Kubiak as part of Brady’s Fox gig.
No other team that was considering Kubiak had an opportunity to essentially interview him within the confines of meetings and communications unrelated to a formal interview. Brady worked both of the Seattle playoff games, in both the divisional round and conference-championship round, at a time when teams were figuring out which coaches to hire. Given his separate role as a Raiders owner, Brady had an opportunity to actively evaluate Kubiak that none of the other teams looking for coaches could even begin to duplicate.
None of this will be an issue until the Raiders and/or Dolphins become consistent contenders again. If/when that happens, people with other teams will finally realize that they never should have let this situation exist, and they’ll begin clamoring for a way to undo it.
At that point, the challenge for the NFL will be clear. They created this problem. If they ever try to clean up the mess, they’ll first have to admit that they made it.
