Raiders Owner Tom Brady is Using His Fox Gig to Make Things Painfully Awkward for the NFL and its Bad Officials

Ron Jenkins. Getty Images.

The vast majority of people voluntarily step away from their careers in order to do less. In fact, it's the entire premise of retirement. To relax, enjoy the fruits of your labor, live off your savings, your pension, and government checks, and try to spend it all before you die.

But if Tom Brady has taught us anything, it's that he is no "person." He's a force of nature. An element, like fire and water, who cannot be tamed or expected to do what mere mortals do. While most retirees might pick up a shift as the starter at their favorite golf course or hostessing at a local brunch place, Brady is wearing so many hats it's hard to keep track of all the things he's involved with. Including, though not limited to, adding to his career record as a world class swordsman, as reported by Devlin:

Which is why sometimes when he's doing the games for Fox, I tend to forget he's also part owner of an NFL franchise. 

Honestly, it's like he gets to be two different people. Owner Tom has an alter ego, Analyst Tom. And even though it's not a secret (he doesn't have to wipe everybody's memories like Peter Parker did), he still gets to use his that other identity to do and say things no other owner can:

Source -  Tom Brady’s insistence on working for Fox while owning a piece of the Raiders creates potential complications beyond the restrictions on his access to team facilities and practices. When it comes to criticizing game officials, there’s a line he can’t cross.

As the league has previously explained it, Brady is prohibited from being “egregiously critical of officiating” or “call[ing] into question the integrity of an official or the crew.”

On Sunday in Detroit, Brady criticized multiple officiating decisions. The overriding question is whether the league office will regard the criticism as “egregious.”

And be "egregiously critical of officiating" is precisely what he did. 

The officiating in the Green Bay-Detroit game was brutal. But not as brutal as the treatment the crew got from Analyst Tom. If they thought they were safe because Mark Davis's business partner has to play nice and color inside the lines, they had another thing coming. And he was right every time:

And this is exactly what people warned about when the GOAT was allowed to take on this dual roles. That it was a conflict of interest. That special rules would have to be put in place in order to prevent him from having leeway other owners and broadcasters don't. And that its inherently unfair. All of which is proving true. 

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And to that I say, tough. Suck it up, buttercup. Your rules do not apply to Tom frigging Brady. They didn't when he was benefiting from Tuck Rules and spy cameras and deflated footballs and his defensive backs mauling the opposition's receivers. It's ironic we're talking about roughing the passer calls since they put an iron dome around quarterbacks just to protect him, and called it The Tom Brady Rule. So your little "calling into question the integrity of an official or the crew" rule means nothing to a man of his stature. He's going to say what he wants to say, do what he wants to do, and sleep with the Victoria's Secret supermodel he wants to sleep with. As Steely Dan put it, he lays down the law and breaks it. 

And there's nothing the rest of the world can do to stop him. If you could, you would have figured out the way to do it long before now. 

Lions do not care about the opinions of sheep. Neither do GOATs. Kiss the rings. And do a better job officiating the games.