Rex Ryan Had Very Sarcastic Line About Tom Brady Bending Rules

Andy Nesbitt | Sep 21, 2025

Tom Brady was seen in the Raiders' coaches' booth during last Monday night's game in Las Vegas. / @ESPN

One of the biggest storylines that came out of last week's NFL action didn't have anything to do with any players, but rather an announcer who is also a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.

We're talking, of course, about seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady who was seen working with Raiders coaches during their loss to the Chargers last Monday night.

While the image of Brady with a headset on was pretty wild, it led to many around the league wondering if his status as a broadcaster with Fox while being a part owner of the Raiders gives him and the team an unfair advantage.

ESPN's Rex Ryan weighed in on that topic on Sunday morning, and he used a very sarcastic line about Brady while doing so.

"Let's face it, Tom Brady would never bend the rules right," Ryan said. "But you know what, quite honestly you control the narrative. As a coach every single week you have a production meeting [with announcers] so the head coach goes in, offensive coordinator, and selected players, generally the quarterback. And so you control the message. If I never trusted a guy—it’s not just Tom Brady—if there’s somebody that you don’t trust that has actually earned that reputation as a guy you can’t trust I would feed that guy so much crap it was unbelievable. … For the most part you tell your team here’s the message we’re going to send, this is what we’re going to do. Look, you’ve got bigger issues if speaking to the media guys is your biggest concern. You’ve got bigger issues as a team. Go out and play."

Here's that discussion:

"Let's face it, Tom Brady would never bend the rules right?"

Rex Ryan is not too worried about Tom Brady in the coaches booth 😅 pic.twitter.com/mqfUgJ7E7k

— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) September 21, 2025

Ryan is right, teams can tell the announcers whatever they feel like telling them before a game.

The interesting thing here is Brady will be calling Sunday's Cowboys-Bears game. The Raiders play Chicago next week, so many have wondered if Brady would be able to pick up any intel from Bears head coach Ben Johnson. Chances are he won't, but this is a situation the league has never faced before.

The Raiders, meanwhile, are coming off a loss and could use all the help they can get.

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