Tommy Joins The Raiders…But Not That Way
Tom Brady, fresh off his horrible investment in FTX, has decided to move into a more steadily lucrative and less fad-based form of capital investment. He is now (or will be soon) a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. Why the Raiders? I dunno. Nobody really seems to know exactly what Tom is up to these days, there have been a lot of rumors he isn’t actually going to join the FOX booth as originally contracted to do so last offseason.
I figured maybe Davis brought Tawwmy on board because the Raiders are one of the lowest valued teams and Davis one of the poorest owners, but that’s not exactly true anymore. The Raiders have gained in value significantly since moving to Vegas. The Bengals are currently the lowest. This is actually the second ownership stake Brady has bought into with Mark Davis, the other one being the WNBA Las Vegas Aces. He must have a good relationship with Davis. It’s pretty ironic considering his history with the Raiders franchise.
We can really only speculate on whatever Brady’s endgame is. Maybe he wants to be a full-fledged owner. Maybe he’s just moving to Vegas in the most middle-aged divorced dad with too much money move possible. Maybe he and Josh McDaniels are simply meant for each other. Maybe he wants to personally fuck over Jimmy Garoppolo. I will probably have to make a further comic about that whole Jimmy mess and the state of the Raiders later this week because that’s a pretty exciting pile of trash developing right before our eyes.
Last aside I guess, but a lot of people like to jokingly say that if the Tuck Rule was called correctly it spares the world the Patriots dynasty, but I don’t agree with that. Brady might only have 6 rings instead of 7 in that case, but I don’t think it slows the Brady ascension. Drew Bledsoe getting hurt is the real moment we’d have to use our time travel to prevent. If Bledsoe stays healthy, Brady probably doesn’t get a chance to play for one of the most stacked defensive squads of the 2000’s. If he never gets his chance, he might still end up on another team, but that next team will likely not be as good as those Patriots squads were, and he might not be able to Tom Brady his way out of that.
I also think Brady is well aware that the Tuck Rule was a fumble, but as much as I hate to say it, that wasn’t on him. It was on the refs and the incredibly stupid rule. He just dropped the ball and has more or less had to keep the public gaslighting going his whole career after it ended in his favor.
Bad rule, good call. End of story. There’s a reason it doesn’t exist anymore.
It’s the best way to sum it up.
Some people still thinks that rule was invented out of nowhere for that moment for some reason.
Reading this had the Patriots Stan inside of me screaming “THEY GOT THE CALL RIGHT DAVE, IT WAS A BAD RULE!”
Luckily I’m not no mood to start a whole debate over that. The Tuck Rule sucked and they took 10 years too long to abolish it.
Indeed. I recall being puzzled by some of the outrage at the time over the rule, as if it had been made up on the spot, when it had been prominently seen in a Monday Night Football game between the Rams and Bucs earlier that season.
The person really owes his career to is Mo Lewis (guy who knocked Bledsoe out).
To be fair Bledsoe likely would have lost his job in 2002 despite the contract. Mo Lewis going 9/11 on Bledsoe happened to sped up the process. People forget that in preseason Brady actually outperformed Drew before he bled so much.
Everybody rightly points to the Bledsoe injury as the thing that allowed Brady to ascend to the starter’s job, but what most miss is that the sentence is missing the work “easily” or “non-controversially”. There are a number of articles/books out there detailing from the inside how Bill wanted to move on from Bledsoe even before that, and that Brady gave him legitimate competition in pre-season that year. It wouldn’t have been easy to sell the switch without the life-threatening injury, but look at Belichick’s history with Bernie Kosar in Cleveland – he was willing to let go of the big-name QB who was a sacred cow locally. So Bledsoe’s injury made the switch easier, but it was probably inevitable too.
Kurt Warner’s probably the better choice for those who want that story. Nobody was thinking of replacing Trent Green in St Louis, and many didn’t think it’d be Warner even after Green got hurt.
Not trying to “well, actually” Dave’s comments above. I just think the other half of the story didn’t get told much nationally – that there was a chance for Brady to get an opportunity even without the Mo Lewis hit – it just gave Belichick a chance to do what he kinda wanted to do already. In fact, it kinda reinforces Dave’s point – Brady was going to be Brady anyway. Maybe not as successful if it didn’t happen then and with Bill, but he wasn’t given the chance to start JUST because of a fluke injury .
I’ve heard a lot of conflicting stories regarding whether Brady had a legitimate chance at starting. On one hand, I don’t doubt that Belichick considered giving Brady a go, especially after they got off to another crappy start to the season. On the other, they literally signed Bledsoe to a 10 year extension that same offseason. Say what you will, but that alone makes me think that they had a lot more confidence in Bledsoe than people let on.
I’m sure if Bledose’s poor play continued through 2001, Brady would have gotten the not eventually, but it wouldn’t have been until 2002 at the earliest, if not 2003. Bledsoe getting knocked out just allowed Brady that opportunity a lot sooner.
Ironically, if Brady does end up becoming the owner of the Raiders, I feel like the first thing he’d do is make them take down that huge mural of the Tuck Rule they have in the team’s facilities.
The regime would still have happened- don’t like calling it a dynasty, as it would still have been tarnished. Deflategate. Spygate. (hell, if the Astros get torn a new ass for that…)
A regime can be a dynasty.
Gronk must love Vegas…