Raiders minority owner Tom Brady has been trying to separate himself from the personnel decisions in Las Vegas over the last few months, and the strongest statement from Brady on the matter involved the team’s decision to avoid Shedeur Sanders in the draft.
“I wasn’t a part of any evaluation process,” Brady said of the Raiders decision to not draft Sanders.
There aren’t many buying the notion that Brady didn’t have a heavy hand in the Raiders’ offseason decisions at quarterback and long-time league insider Mike Silver reported on the matter this week.
According to Silver, it was Brady who killed any chances Sam Darnold had of playing in Las Vegas.
“Some believed the Las Vegas Raiders would try to sign Darnold, [but] minority owner Tom Brady — a seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback whose opinion held great sway — was not in favor of that approach, according to a source familiar with the franchise’s internal discussions,” Silver reported this week at The Athletic.
From the time Brady formally arrived in Las Vegas, there has been a hope that he would be able to identify a young quarterback that might be next great gunslinger in Silver & Black.
Time will tell if North Dakota State quarterback Cam Miller has what it takes to be a starter in the NFL, but he obviously received Brady’s stamp of approval, which makes him one of the more intriguing quarterback prospects in this year’s draft.
Miller might not be a threat to start at quarterback anytime soon, but he’s going to be a player to watch as he develops behind Geno Smith.
A lot of theories have surfaced to why Shedeur fell in the draft (most being remarkably stupid), but Brady and the Raiders had every reason to draft Shedeur if there were not legitimate reasons to be concerned with his NFL trajectory.
It will be interesting to see who reports on Shedeur’s situation in Cleveland first, but it didn’t look like Browns GM Andrew Berry had any enthusiasm for drafting Shedeur just 50 spots after they spent a third-round pick on Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel.
After seeing the reaction in Cleveland live, it would be naive to believe ownership didn’t step in and make the Browns’ decision on Shedeur in the fifth round.
As ESPN’s Mel Kiper pointed out, it probably would have been better for Shedeur to go undrafted and able to pick his own team rather than be drafted into the situation waiting for him in Cleveland.
The good news for the Sanders family, though, is the draft is over and he can move forward with his career.
Shedeur will have the opportunity to silence his many critics and prove to all 32 NFL teams, including his mentor, Tom Brady, that they were foolish to pass on him repeatedly in the 2025 draft.
