Michael Owens/Getty ImagesFox Sports commentator Tom Brady has a vote in the Associated Press’ NFL awards this season and it’s unsurprisingly been a controversial topic, given that the former NFL quarterback is also a partial stakeholder in the Las Vegas Raiders.
That is the very definition of a conflict of interest, though the AP defended the decision to give Brady a vote on Friday.
“As a credentialed media member who covers the NFL regularly, Tom Brady meets the requirement to vote for the AP NFL awards,” the AP’s media relations manager, Nicole Meir, wrote to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk in an email. “We are confident that the integrity of the voting process will be respected by all voters.”
The NFL itself has already acknowledged the potential conflict of interest between Brady’s role as a partial owner and a color commentator, coming up with a list of specific restrictions for him in his role as an announcer. Those include him being excluded from team practices and broadcast meetings with the teams he’s covering that week, preventing him from having the sort of access to other organizations that would give him valuable intel he could relay back to the Raiders.
The concerns about his AP voting status are no different. What happens when a player on the Raiders is in the running for a major reward? Will Brady be more inclined to vote for Brock Bowers as the Offensive Rookie of the Year this season over players like Jayden Daniels or Bo Nix?
It’s not that Bowers isn’t worthy of consideration. He’s been fantastic this season, registering 101 receptions for 1,067 yards and four touchdowns, an absurd season for a rookie tight end. It’s that if Brady votes for him to win the award, it will be impossible to know if he did so from a place of pure analysis or if bias clouded his judgement.
It’s possible that the controversy over Brady’s vote will make him one-and-done in the AP’s NFL awards selection process, and they’ll rescind his vote ahead of the 2025 season. It’s easy enough to understand why folks are questioning how he was allowed to have a vote in the first place, however.
Source : Bleacher Report