McDaniels has a special task for Tom Brady before he becomes Raiders' minority team owner
Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels needs Tom Brady to admit the truth.
As now-retired quarterback Tom Brady is set to become a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, team head coach Josh McDaniels has one more task for Brady before everything is official.
Brady is awaiting the NFL's final approval, but if McDaniels has something to say about it, the first-ballot Hall of Fame signal-caller must admit the play invoking the infamous "Tuck Rule" was a fumble.
"One hundred percent. No question," McDaniels said of if Brady must admit it was a fumble via Pro Football Talk.
The "Tuck Rule" grew to infamy on Jan. 19, 2002, during the AFC Divisional Round when the then-Oakland Raiders faced the New England Patriots.
Charles Woodson sacked Brady in the snow, forcing him to fumble. The ball was recovered by Raiders linebacker Greg Biekert. And with a three-point lead, it was the type of play that could have put New England to bed. But that is not how everything played out.
The refs invoked the Tuck Rule, which stated any intentional forward movement of the arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it toward the body.
It was believed that Brady was attempting to tuck the ball, thus it wasn't ruled a fumble. The end result was New England maintained possession, and went on to win the game and the Super Bowl that year.
The tuck rule was eliminated from the NFL rule book in 2013. But it is still a sore spot for many who believe the Raiders could have won a Super Bowl in 2002.
Though painful, those feelings are now mostly water under the bridge. And at least for McDaniels, he looks forward to Brady having minority ownership of the team he coaches.
"I think everybody knows how I feel about Tom the person," McDaniels explained. "So, if that comes to fruition, obviously I’ll be incredibly excited about just him being somebody that’s in Raider Nation and has a vested interest in us doing as well as we can do in trying to bring a championship football team here to Vegas."
