After 18 months of build-up, Tom Brady is expected to become a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, following league approval on Tuesday, per ESPN.
I previously wrote about how the 69-year-old Mark Davis has no children of his own and he is the only child of Al and Carol Davis, so perhaps he's thinking about the long-term health of the Raiders by bringing in Brady. Using this opportunity to show Brady the ways of ownership, so that eventually Brady becomes the majority owner when there isn't a Davis left to run the Raiders. To leave the Raiders in the hands of a brilliant football mind.
Again, with Davis at 69 years old, the Raiders are facing an ownership change in the next couple of decades. The NFL requires every team to have a succession plan in place. You have to wonder what the Raiders' plan will look like following Tuesday's vote.
According to Albert Breer, the 10% ownership stake gives 5% to Brady, 5% to Brady's business partner Tom Wagner and 0.5% to Hall of Famer Richard Seymour, who played for the Raiders and of course was Brady's teammate in New England.
Following another disappointing loss on Sunday, and the exit of Davante Adams this morning, Raider Nation is down bad right now. With all this negative news, many fans are clinging to the one positive news story right now -- and the sliver of hope that Tom Brady will arrive and save the franchise.
But, it's just that, it's a sliver of hope. Traditionally, players with championship rings rarely turn into owners with championship rings. Michael Jordan being the most obvious example. He is the greatest basketball player of all-time, yet only made the playoffs three times in 17 seasons as owner of the Charlotte NBA franchise (with zero playoff series wins). What's accomplished on the playing surface doesn't easily translate to team ownership. Running an offense is one thing, but helping run a multi-billion dollar business is another.
Richard Seymour and Tom Brady have already had Mark Davis' ears long before today's formality. But the Raiders already attempted to implement the Patriot Way. And it failed. Miserably.
So I'm not too sure what perspectives Brady and Seymour bring that the other regime who also came from New England - Dave Ziegler, Josh McDaniels, Mick Lombardi, Bo Hardegree - didn't already offer.
Don't get me wrong, Brady and Seymour are football greats. The other guys are not on that level. But regardless, they all come from the same education.
While I think it's a tall task to expect Brady to turn around two decades of losing, I am obviously rooting for it to happen. The one constant presence in those two decades has been the Davis family, so perhaps a shake-up on the ownership level is exactly what's needed.
At the very least, who doesn't love the irony that the quarterback in the tuck rule play (which has since cursed the Raiders) could possibly be the one to bring the franchise back to life?