Tom Brady played for 23 NFL seasons with a single, maniacal goal: to become the greatest quarterback who ever lived. He achieved it. Now, in retirement, Brady has dabbled in everything. He calls games for Fox. He’s building chimneys in Birmingham. He’s flogged crypto. He’s spreading America’s Game to Riyadh. He has a thriving YouTube account. He cloned his dog. Brady’s post-playing portfolio has been diverse, or aimless, depending on your perspective.
Side hustles are one thing. But running a pro franchise is not a part-time job. Along with his other roles, Brady is also the de facto football czar of the Raiders, the most hapless team in the league.
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The Raiders dropped to 2–9 on Sunday after being waxed 24-10 by the Browns. The Raiders didn’t just lose; they were embarrassed by a bad team with a quarterback making his first NFL start. The Raiders’ offense averaged 2.9 yards a play before garbage time in the fourth quarter. Geno Smith was sacked 10 times and was pressured 46 times, a single-game high for any team this season. On defense, Las Vegas gifted up chunk plays to a Cleveland offense that has been dysfunctional for most of the season. Any way you slice it, it was a beatdown. At least Brady didn’t have to watch. The architect of the latest Vegas mess was sitting in Dallas on the Fox broadcast for Eagles-Cowboys.
In fairness to Brady, he has only spent one season leading the team’s football decisions, becoming a minority owner of the franchise in 2024. But he was responsible for every major decision last offseason, and all of them have backfired. Those moves have left the Raiders as the most unwatchable and directionless franchise in the league.
This wasn’t supposed to be a multi-year rebuild. The Raiders didn’t hire 74-year-old Pete Carroll, one of only three coaches to win both a Super Bowl and a college national championship, to oversee a long slog back up the standings. He was supposed to return the team to relevance and then hand them off with a solid foundation in place. Instead, Carroll is staring at the possibility of being one-and-done in Vegas, and the Raiders are looking at another reboot.
This isn’t all Brady’s fault, of course. Mark Davis is still the majority owner. Davis has churned through coaches and front-office heads at a speed that would make even the Jets blush. The Raiders are on their seventh coach and fifth general manager in 15 years, a turnover rate that has erased any coherent long-term vision. Still, it’s Brady’s fingerprints that are all over this iteration of the Raiders. “This is the Tom Brady show,” NFL Insider Tom Pelissero said last offseason. “He’s been integrally involved,” Carroll said of Brady at his introductory news conference in January. “This is his opportunity to put his stamp on a franchise.”
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Related: NFL roundup: Cowboys roar back to stun Eagles as Sanders wins first Browns start
Brady made the key hires and set the Raiders on this rudderless course. He hired John Spytek, his college buddy and colleague in Tampa, to serve as general manager. He greenlit a roster plan to Carroll’s preference, including trading a third-round pick for Smith and drafting a running back No 6 overall despite having a bottom-tier offensive line. He lured Chip Kelly away from the college ranks, making him the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the league. And he signed off on handing a flaky offensive line – the bedrock for that coordinator and running back – to Carroll’s son.
It’s been a disaster. Last season’s Raiders were a four-win team, but they were scrappy and competitive. This year’s Raiders are a confused mess. Carroll has installed an outdated defensive philosophy, Smith looks washed and the Raiders’ offensive line has submarined any hopes for Ashton Jeanty and the run game. If nothing else, Caroll was supposed to bring energy. But the Raiders were lifeless on Sunday, counting down the plays to the end of the game.
The contrast with Cleveland was stark. Things are always bleak with the Browns, but there are embers of hope. Myles Garrett, now just five sacks away from the NFL single-season record, leads a formidable defense. And there is optimism around the stellar-looking rookie class that includes two potential stars – Quinshon Judkins at running back and Carson Schwesinger at linebacke. There is also Shedeur Sanders, who may not be The Answer at quarterback, but who is An Answer in the short-term.
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Granted, it was the Raiders’ defense, but Sanders showed that the stage was not too big for him. With a full week to prepare, he was solid, taking what the defense gave him and showing flashes of creativity. Sanders became the first Browns rookie quarterback to win his first start since 1995.
Sanders and the rest of the Browns’ rookie class represent promise. That’s a mirror the Raiders don’t want to look into. Good organizations understand their position in the ecosystem: you’re either a contender, a frisky playoff team, or rebuilding. Vegas entered 2025 believing they were a couple of moves away from respectability. Despite the overwhelming evidence otherwise, they haven’t pivoted midstream. Like Cleveland, Vegas should be throwing out rookies to find out what they have for the future. But only two rookies have seen real playing time. There has reportedly already been tension between the coaching staff and the front office regarding the lack of action for two rookie offensive linemen, despite the o-line being a sieve. Rookie receivers Jack Bech and Dont’e Thornton Jr have combined for nine catches in 11 games, despite the lack of spark in the passing game. Carroll continues to roll out grizzled vets on defense over rookies in need of reps.
What is the path forward? Will Carroll be back or Spytek or Smith? And who actually makes those decisions, Brady or Davis? How can a team operate when its most powerful decision-maker logs in occasionally, signs off franchise-altering moves, and then vanishes on side quests?
It’s going to be a struggle for the Raiders to improve – and they are in a division stacked with perennial playoff contenders. Meanwhile, other rebuilders have paths. The Jets are stocked with future draft picks. The Titans and Giants have promising young quarterbacks. The Raiders have nothing. No core. No quarterback. No identity. No plan.
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The only thing more dangerous than being bad in the NFL is not knowing you’re bad. The Raiders don’t know where they are, what they are building, or who will call the shots in the offseason.
Tom Brady once mastered football through ruthless focus. The Raiders could use more than an hour of it.
MVP of the week
Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Detroit Lions. The Lions survived a bananas game from Jameis Winston, as they beat the Giants 34-27 in overtime to improve to 7-4 on the season. The Giants exposed cracks throughout the Lions’ roster, but Gibbs dragged Detroit out the mud. Gibbs finished with 264 scrimmage yards and three touchdowns on just 26 touches, including a 69-yard game-sealing score.
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No one in the league moves quite like Gibbs. If you’re putting together a list of the NFL’s best pound-for-pound players, he’s right there with Garrett, Micah Parsons and Bijan Robinson. Of all the league’s backs, he may be the most complete. He can run routes like a receiver and thump between the tackles, is an explosive one-cut-and-go back and then is electric with the ball in his hands. Gibbs added to his hold over the league’s fanciest speed metrics with his overtime run, clocking in at 22.17 mph, the fourth-fastest speed of any ball carrier this season and his third time cracking 22 mph. Gibbs is now responsible for three of the four quickest plays of the season. There is juice, and there is Jahmyr Gibbs juice.
Video of the week
Holy Prescott! There goes Dak rolling into the endzone to tie up the game against the Eagles after the Cowboys had trailed 21-0. The Cowboys went on to win 24-21.
The Eagles jumped out to a commanding lead until their offense, once again, ground to a halt. Prescott took advantage, throwing for 354 yards and two touchdowns with one interception. Those yards pushed him past Tony Romo as the franchise’s all-time leader in passing yards.
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Prescott takes a lot of flak for Dallas’s postseason failings, but for a fourth-round pick who played in a gimmicky, college offense, to surpass Romo and Troy Aikman as the Cowboys’ passing leader is incredible. Prescott may not dine at the same table as Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, but he isn’t far behind the league’s best. Without him this season, the Cowboys would not be 5-5-1 with a chance to make the playoffs.
Stat of the week
105. TJ Watt climbed another rung up the all-time sacks ladder with the 105th of his career (he is now ranked 26th). The sack moved him past his soon-to-be Hall of Fame brother, JJ Watt in the record books. And JJ just so happened to be on the call in his new role as a CBS analyst. “This is preposterous,” JJ said. “I’m gonna put the pads back on.”
The Watts are the only brothers to each record 100 or more career sacks since the stat became official, according to ESPN. “If he’s gonna pass my record, that’s one hell of a way to do it,” Watt said. “Good for you, TJ.”
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Elsewhere around the league
• Why not a second stat of the week? Because this one is almost unfathomable. With 167 receiving yards against the Titans, Jaxon Smith-Njigba broke the Seahawks franchise record for receiving yards in a season. A reminder: we’re only in Week 12! And the Seahawks have already had a bye! In 11 games, Smith-Njigba has posted 80 catches for 1,313 yards and seven touchdowns. That’s more yards than DK Metcalf had in a 17-game year or Hall of Famer Steve Largent could muster in a Seahawks season. Smith-Njigba is also the only player in NFL history with 75-plus receiving yards in each of his team’s first 11 games. From a dependable player a year ago, Smith-Njigba has become the most dynamic, effective receiver in the game.
• You have to give Giants interim coach Mike Kafka credit. He took the Lions to the wall on the road, forcing overtime against a team that hasn’t lost back-to-back games since 2022. Kafka was treated to the full Jameis Winston experience. The quarterback lobbed bombs all over the field, throwing for 366 yards, two touchdowns and catching a touchdown on what might wind up being the most absurd play of the season. Winston didn’t just snag a trick play. He caught a throwback pass in the redzone and shook off a defender at the 10-yard line before walking in for the score. Kafka accepted what all interim coaches should: he’s here for a good time, not a long time. Kafka called plays like a wild man, allowed Winston to be his chaotic self and went for the jugular at the end of the game when he could have turtled up. The Giants lost, but Kafka bolstered his coaching cache.
• This season’s MVP is Matthew Stafford’s to lose. He threw three touchdowns in the Rams’ dominant 34-7 win over the Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football, and now has 30 for the season along with just two interceptions – and the two picks came back in September. There was concern for the Bucs as Baker Mayfield left with a shoulder injury in the first-half and was later seen with his arm in a sling on the sideline.
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• What should the Vikings do with JJ McCarthy? Minnesota were hammered 23-6 by Green Bay, and the Packers could have won by a lot more. The Vikings’ second-year quarterback was frazzled – again – in a road game. He struggled to get snaps off, sacked himself on a botched snap, missed open throws and completed as many passes to his own coaching staff on the sideline as he did to his teammates in the first quarter. McCarthy was pressured on over 50% of his dropbacks, and most of those were due to his refusal to get rid of the ball. It’s hard for any team to function when their quarterback has a sundial for his internal clock. By the end of the game, McCarthy had completed 12 of his 19 pass attempts for 87 yards, with two gnarly interceptions. His advanced stat line was bordering on Zach Wilson-ian. Coming off an extended injury in what is effectively his rookie season, sitting McCarthy for a few weeks would be in his and the franchise’s long-term interests.