Tom Brady became a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders in October 2024, when NFL owners unanimously approved his purchase of a 5% personal stake in the franchise. Since then, questions about how much Brady actually does, or should, have swirled around the organization.
Those questions only intensified after the Raiders used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner Brady had personally championed.
General Manager John Spytek was quick to clarify the chain of command, telling Kay Adams on Up and Adams that Brady has “empowered us to run the day-to-day of the Raiders the way that we see fit.” For Mike Florio, that statement said everything.
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Florio wasted little time cutting to the heart of the matter, reaching for a vivid analogy to frame his verdict on what Brady’s role actually is, and what it probably should be.
“Just because you’re a great pilot doesn’t mean you know how to work on the engine or build the plane,” Florio said on “Pro Football Talk.”
“He’s the Chuck Yeager of quarterbacks,” Florio said. “Can fly anything. Can fly it anywhere. Can change planes late in career and still be the best pilot around. He’s standing there while they’re trying to build that plane and he’s saying, ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I’ll just stand here.’ Hey guys, you’re empowered to work on the plane. I got other things I got to do.”
The point behind the colorful analogy is precise and to the point. Seven Super Bowl rings make Brady one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. They do not make him a roster architect. And Florio argued that Brady himself seems to understand this, framing the owner’s willingness to step back not as absence but as self-awareness.
“I think he knows he doesn’t have the skill set to do it,” Florio continued. “He knows, without doing what Dan Marino did for three weeks, to realize he needs to have a job much more like what Dan Marino has been doing for the Dolphins over the past 10 years. They found a job for him that didn’t require him to do things he’s not suited to do.”
“And just because you’re a good quarterback doesn’t mean you’re suited to build and run a team,” he continued. “Just like Howie Roseman is suited to build and run a team, but he’s not suited to play. He, I would say the difference is he’s just been put into this position to do it.”
The Marino comparison carries real weight. In 2004, the Hall of Fame QB joined the Miami Dolphins as Senior VP of Football Operations, a role he resigned from after just three weeks, saying it was not in the best interest of his family or the organization.
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He returned in 2014 in a far more appropriate capacity as Special Advisor, a role he has held ever since, attending QB meetings and offering counsel without making personnel decisions.
According to the Dolphins’ own official profile, Marino “works in a variety of different capacities throughout all facets of the organization,” a deliberately flexible remit that plays to his strengths without putting him in charge of the parts he struggled with. That is the blueprint Florio believes Brady should follow.
What separates the two situations is visibility and expectation. Brady’s ownership stake carries far more public weight, and the decision to select Mendoza No. 1 overall has been widely framed as Brady’s bet on a successor.
According to PFSN’s CFB QB Impact Metric, Mendoza finished the 2025 college season ranked second nationally with an impact score of 93.26, trailing only Diego Pavia. The talent is not in question. Whether the front office structure built around that talent is the right one is very much so.
Spytek and head coach Klint Kubiak are running the show day-to-day. Brady, for now, is standing next to the plane.
