Does Pete Carroll Hiring Mean We’ll Hear Tom Brady Call a Raiders Game Next Season?

The Fox broadcaster is allowed to call a Raiders game, and with a better coach, it could very well happen in 2025.
The possibility of Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt calling a Raiders game just went up a lot.
The possibility of Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt calling a Raiders game just went up a lot. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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1. It’s hard to fully analyze next season’s NFL schedule because 1) it isn’t out yet and 2) with crossflex between CBS and Fox, we don’t know which games will air on which networks.

However, with the Raiders hiring Pete Carroll Friday morning, the possibility of Tom Brady calling a Las Vegas game is very real.

When Brady became a 5% owner of the Raiders, the league gave the green light for him to call games featuring the team. While he has restrictions on being a broadcaster, calling a Raiders game is not among them.

You can be sure Fox would LOVE to have Brady in the booth for a couple of Raiders game just for the attention it would generate. It would be a full week of “CONFLICT OF INTEREST” thinkpieces.

The Raiders are scheduled to play five NFC teams in 2025: Cowboys, Giants, Bears, Eagles and Commanders.

My guess is at least a couple of those games will get prime-time slots. CBS is in the mix for some of those games, too. But that will still leave one or two decent games for Fox to slide into its 4:25 p.m. slot on Sunday with Brady and Kevin Burkhardt behind the mic.

There isn’t a bigger conspiracy theory sports fans love more than “X announcer is rooting for X team.”

In the case of Brady calling a Raiders game, it will be a reality, not a conspiracy theory.

2. We usually feature light-hearted Inside the NBA clips here, but Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal engaged in a serious discussion Thursday night about Jimmy Butler’s situation with the Heat. It was excellent television despite Shaq being 100% wrong.

3. After a full week of “the Chiefs get all the calls from the refs” analysis, now we’re onto “did the NFL assign Clete Blakeman” to ref the Bills-Chiefs game to even things out?”

In all seriousness, though, the article linked in the tweet below offers some good insight into the officials for Sunday’s games.

4. NHL referee Kyle Rehman had a must-hear call during Thursday’s Predators-Sharks game.

5. I think every Pat McAfee Show viewer would agree that this was very well done.

6. A brand-new SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast dropped Thursday morning and this week’s guest is ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio.

Topics covered include the significant ratings drop for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, the latest regarding the league going to an 18-game schedule, Netflix’s involvement in the NFL, the narrative that the league and the refs want the Chiefs to win, the practice of having coaches interview for jobs with other teams while they are in the playoffs, what happened to Deion Sanders possibly becoming the Cowboys coach, Tom Brady’s conflict of interest in calling game for Fox while being one of the owners of the Raiders and much, much more.

Following Florio, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week’s topics include the AFC and NFC championship games, Chiefs fatigue, Bob Uecker, dark sitcom moments and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: In preparation for Sunday’s AFC Championship game between the Bills and Chiefs, here are the final two minutes of the epic divisional round game the teams played in 2022. A few notes: The final two minutes took 30 minutes in real time. Jim Nantz’s voice was struggling by the end. Nantz and Tony Romo probably had their finest broadcasting moment when both said with 13 seconds left that the Bills needed to squib kick or not kick the ball in the end zone. Instead, Buffalo coach Sean McDermott had the team kick it in the end zone and the rest is history.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on AppleSpotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.


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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.