Tom Brady's NFL restrictions as co-owner of the Raiders make it impossible for him to be a successful broadcaster

When Fox hired Tom Brady as lead NFL analyst, the move made sense – even if it meant demoting a major talent in Greg Olsen. Brady is the best quarterback to ever play, and since he recently retired, he would theoretically bring tremendous familiarity and expertise to today's NFL.

That hasn't really shown itself in the first few weeks of Brady's broadcasting career, and it's almost certainly going to get worse. He can no longer be honest with his audience.

On Tuesday, the league's owners formally approved a group led by Brady to acquire a 10 percent stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. That effectively made Brady a co-owner and someone with a financial incentive to help the Raiders succeed, while also speaking to viewers as an impartial expert. The conflict is obvious.

However, to prevent Brady from using insider information or exploiting this conflict of interest, the league has implemented restrictions on what Brady can do and say as a Fox broadcaster. And, uh, it's a lot.

According to ESPN, Brady will not be allowed into non-Raiders facilities (other than the stadiums where he works to call games). He can't watch training. He cannot participate in broadcast production meetings in any capacity, which is a massive limitation for an announcer since these meetings are designed to create talking points and insights in order to broadcast a program over three hours.

He is also not allowed to criticize match officials or other teams, which is a big limit for a broadcaster. Essentially, he would have to observe a potentially game-winning missed call and either remain silent or shift the blame away from the refs. This is just a terrible disservice to viewers.

We'll have to see how this all plays out on Sunday. But it can't be good, especially for an inexperienced broadcaster like Brady. We may be at the point where we're wondering if Brady is bad or if he's just contractually limited to being bad in a job that will pay him $375 million over a decade.

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This article originally appeared on For The Win: Tom Brady's NFL restrictions as co-owner of the Raiders make it impossible for him to be a successful broadcaster