From the moment Tom Brady became a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, many Patriots fans wished the greatest quarterback of all time had instead bought a stake in his former longtime team, and some were upset that Robert Kraft didn't make the offer.
Although the Raiders are far from a rival, Brady is still involved with an AFC team, which ultimately becomes competition for the Patriots, and his involvement in their development is something New England fans would have loved to see in Foxboro instead, as somewhat of a peace offering for leaving the team six years ago.
As we've seen, the start of his ownership has been far from desirable, with the Raiders continuing to be one of the worst teams in the league. They did, however, beat the Patriots in 2025, which stung a bit more because of Brady's presence, but the hope is they won't suffer the same fate this fall.
The Raiders appear to be on the right track with their team after selecting quarterback Fernando Mendoza with their first-round pick. Expectations are sky-high at this point, and based on what Brady had to say about their performance last season, it's clear they have to deliver, or big changes are coming.
It should make Patriots fans unexpectedly happy that he's not saying the same thing about their team instead.
Tom Brady wasn't shy with his criticism of the Raiders' failed 2025 season
During an appearance on the Stick to Football podcast this past week, the FOX Sports commentator spoke candidly about the disappointment of the Raiders' 2025 season.
While it's fair for him to be critical of the team he has an ownership stake in, hearing his brutal takedown of how they performed goes to show that he could easily be saying that about the Patriots if he had ownership of them instead, and that would be hard for fans to hear, to say the least.
"I would expect a lot of improvement from where it's been. Last year, we just underperformed in every area. And it's everybody's fault. That's the reality. There's nobody who did a good job. There's not one player in the organization, there's not anybody involved that did the job to the level that it needs to be done at.
And everybody needs to improve. And it starts with me, and it filters down to the rest of the players on the field, and they've got to go out there, and ultimately they've got to perform at a high level."
He couldn't have been more honest, could he?
That's the kind of feedback you don't generally hear from an NFL owner, but given Brady's background as a player, and a very successful one at that, it's not exactly shocking that he had a lot to say about how poorly the Raiders played last season.
On top of that, his pursuit of perfection is now being placed on the shoulders of the players, as Brady also made his expectations known for the upcoming season. They have a lot to live up to, and hopefully they deliver, or this might not be the last time we hear him say negative things about the franchise.
"I would expect daily improvement, and I'd expect hourly improvement. I really would. Every day that goes by, when you're on a good team, every day and every week goes by, you should be better. Like, a good team should be better at the end of the season than the beginning of the season or you're not a good team.
If you have more time together and more practice and you're getting worse, something's wrong. If you have more time, more practice, you should be getting better."
Although Patriots fans adopted much of the same mindset because of Brady's tenure in Foxboro, it would still be difficult to hear how he felt about the team if they didn't play well in a game or all season.
Instead, they mostly hear Brady talk out of both sides of his mouth, as he praises the Patriots one moment and shows a lack of support the next, but that's better than hearing nothing at all, or only hearing the negative.
No matter what, as cool as it would be to see the former quarterback have a stake in the organization, it might be better that he is out in the AFC West, so we don't have to worry about the unimpressed words he has to say about their performance the way the Raiders do.
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