Tom Brady has spent his entire football life evaluating one thing above all else: whether something actually works on Sunday.

That perspective matters now more than ever.
Since becoming a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, Brady has been asked to do something he rarely had to do as a playerâstep back and judge the game from above.
Last offseason, that process led him and owner Mark Davis to Pete Carroll. The result was brutal. The Raiders collapsed, finishing with one of the worst seasons in franchise history.
For Brady, who built a career on winning, it was unfamiliar territory.
And instructive.

This offseason felt different. Quieter. Sharper.
Instead of chasing legacy or name recognition, the Raiders locked onto Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak. He wasnât just a top candidateâhe was the target.
And according to Brady himself, the reason had less to do with résumés and more to do with firsthand observation.
Brady didnât evaluate Kubiak from a distance. He called his games.
During Seattleâs divisional round and NFC Championship run, Brady was in the booth watching Kubiakâs offense unfold snap by snap. What stood out wasnât a single play or a flashy moment. It was cohesion.
âThey have a lot of different formations and motions,â Brady said on SiriusXM Radio. âThey make one thing look like another thing. Thereâs plays off of plays.â

That phraseâplays off of playsâis telling.
For Brady, great offenses arenât about creativity for its own sake. Theyâre about pressure. About forcing defenses to hesitate because every look carries consequences. Kubiakâs system, Brady noted, did exactly that.
Seattleâs run game was balanced and intentional. Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet gave defenses two different problems before Charbonnetâs injury.
The pass game wasnât overloadedâit was layered. Jaxon Smith-Njigba as the primary threat. Cooper Kupp as the stabilizer in must-have moments. Rashid Shaheed as the spark plug. Tight ends contributing without forcing the issue.
Most importantly, Sam Darnold looked comfortable.

That matters more than it sounds.
Brady emphasized how quarterback-friendly Kubiakâs West Coast structure was. The offense didnât ask Darnold to be someone else. It asked him to execute within rhythm, then strike when defenses broke discipline. Explosive plays followedânot because of chaos, but because of patience.
That approach resonated in Las Vegas.
The Raiders donât need a coach to dominate headlines. They need one to build an identity. After the Carroll experiment unraveled, Bradyâs tolerance for guesswork evaporated. He wanted clarity. He wanted structure. He wanted a coach who understood sequencing as much as ambition.
Brady described Kubiak as someone who has âdeveloped his own identity as a play caller.â That distinction is subtle but important. Kubiak isnât borrowing a system. Heâs shaping one.
For a franchise desperate to reset its trajectory, that mattered.
The irony is that Brady didnât pitch Kubiak with a speech. He didnât sell a vision publicly. He watched. He listened. He evaluated.

And when the Raiders moved, they moved decisively.
Klint Kubiak didnât just accept the job. He chose it.
That choice reflects trustâon both sides.
After a year that forced the Raiders to confront uncomfortable truths, Bradyâs influence appears to have shifted from symbolic to surgical. Heâs no longer chasing the biggest name in the room.
Heâs chasing the thing that made him who he is.
An offense that knows who it is.
A coach who knows why it works.
And a process that doesnât need to be loud to be effective.

Thatâs what drew Tom Brady to Klint Kubiak.
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