Roger Goodell Weighs in on Tom Brady Controversy: 'Where’s the Conflict?'

Goodell said teams can choose what they want to share.

"Teams have the right to say whatever they want to," Goodell said. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Speaking with CNBC Sport's Alex Sherman in a column published Thursday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dismissed the idea that there is a problem with Tom Brady holding roles as both a broadcaster and Raiders minority owner, and noted that teams are not required to share information with him.

"Teams have the right to say whatever they want to. They don’t have to disclose any information if they think it’s a conflict of interest," the commissioner told Sherman. "Teams don’t need to say anything. Sometimes they don’t say anything to somebody who’s not [a minority owner]. We get a lot of former players that are in [broadcast meetings] that are close to their former teams. I think our teams are pretty smart about saying, 'I’m not sharing something with him.'"

"Where’s the conflict?” Goodell added. “He’s not hanging around in the facilities. We don’t allow that."

The commissioner's comments arrived not long after Brady issued a passionate defense of himself in his weekly newsletter on Wednesday.

"I love football. At its core, it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport, which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe," he wrote. "Rather, it’s the place from which my ethical duty emerges: to grow, evolve, and improve the game that has given me everything."

The issue of Brady's potential conflict of interest took on renewed life after he was spotted with a headset in the coach's booth of the Raiders' game vs. the Chargers on Sept. 16. As the broadcast cameras cut to him, ESPN's Peter Schrager was in the middle of explaining how Brady reportedly speaks to Vegas OC Chip Kelly multiple times a week, a characterization that coach Pete Carroll has denied. Even so, what followed has been a spirited debate as to whether Brady is involved enough with the Raiders that his role as a broadcaster affords him and the franchise an unfair advantage.

Multiple teams and a few different coaches have since weighed in—both in support of Brady and against the arrangement—and the NFL even released a statement on the matter. But the buck will ultimately stop with Goodell. And we know how he feels.

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