Bear Digest

Do Bears need to be concerned over Tom Brady conflict of interest?

Analysis: Tom Brady's pursuit of Ben Johnson leaves open the possibility of the Raiders getting an unfair advantage over the Bears in pusuit of the Lions offensive cooridnator as coach.
Gene Chamberlain|
In the interest of fairness, the Bears need to be asking the NFL to alter Fox's broadcast crew for Lions playoff games so tom Brady is not included.
In the interest of fairness, the Bears need to be asking the NFL to alter Fox's broadcast crew for Lions playoff games so tom Brady is not included. | Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

If the Bears know what's good for them in their pursuit of Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson as coach, they should ask some serious questions about the Fox broadcast crew for next week's playoffs, if not also the NFC Championship Game the following week.

A possible conflict of interest exists relative to Tom Brady calling a playoff game for Fox with Detroit in it, and the result could give the Raiders an advantage over the Bears in pursuit of Johnson for the coaching job.

Fox has other announcers they could easily put on the games.

A report by Ian Rapoport said Brady, as a minority owner of the Raiders, is putting on a full-court press to bring Johnson to the Las Vegas Raiders, the team he has a small bit of ownership in. Rapoport even took it to the point of saying the Raiders are "enamored" with Brady.

It just so happens that Fox's TV schedule would be the Commanders game at Detroit Saturday night, and it would mean Brady will be in Detroit. The broadcast crew normally gets access to teams and coaches during the week before the game.

It's hard to believe this does not give Brady and the Raiders an advantage in their pursuit of Johnson. At the least, it looks shady on the surface.

They already interviewed Johnson, like the Bears did. According to the interview rules, there should be no more contact with Johnson until the Lions are eliminated or during the bye week before the Super Bowl.

The league has rules about interviews and contact with the candidates for coaching jobs for a reason, yet this unnecessarily opens the possibility of impropriety.

This isn't to say it would happen, but it does make it possible.

Making sure the whole thing is addressed has to be a situation Kevin Warren and George McCaskey bring up to the NFL in order to ensure proper protocol is followed.

Either that or perhaps they should hire a detective and have Brady followed all over Detroit to make sure it's all above board. They should do the same with Brady's and Johnson's agents.

It would seem Brady himself should take all measures to avoid this and request the assignment be changed. He's already had to pay a penalty enforced by the league for a cheating scandal once.

The Patriots QB was suspended the first four games of 2016 and New England paid a $1 million fine while forfeiting two 2016 draft picks because of the deliberately underinflated footballs they used in the 2014 AFC Championship Game. It was the "deflategate" scandal.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.