NFL addresses reported Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford meeting over potential tampering concerns

The NFL has addressed the report of Tom Brady meeting with Matthew Stafford and the possibility of tampering. NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy spoke to Pro Football Talk and said that Brady, a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, did not tamper with the veteran quarterback.

“Not getting into when/where/how/if there was a meeting,” McCarthy told Pro Football Talk in an email.  “But there’s no issue here as the club gave permission.”

It was reported that Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford ran into each other, unplanned, at a ski resort in Montana. It came as Brady was in direct communication with Stafford’s camp, as the Rams have permitted him to talk to other teams about a possible trade.

Brady’s longtime agent, Don Yee, spoke to the NFL Network and said that the reports of Brady hosting or recruiting Stafford are false. “I know that reporters sometimes make mistakes in their haste, but this story’s inaccurate,” Yee said, per CBS Sports.

Will Matthew Stafford join Tom Brady and the Raiders?

It makes sense for Brady and the Raiders to go after Stafford since they are in dire need of a franchise quarterback. But even though the Rams allowed Stafford to speak to other teams, that doesn’t mean they don’t want him back for the 2025 season.

“When you talk about the elephant in the room, these are the things that are really challenging,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said on the Fitz & Whit podcast this week (per NFL.com). “Because there’s no discrepancy on us wanting him to continue to lead the way and be our quarterback. The interesting and the challenging dilemma and dynamics within this are, hey, how do you continuously, as a head coach, look at the short term and the long term and be able to figure out what does that really look like?

“There is no dispute, and let’s not get it twisted in regards to anybody wanting him to be our quarterback. Now, there’s layers to it. You have to be able to say, hey, how do we continuously build? How do we support him? How do we make sure that he’s getting what is his worth relative to those things?”

Matthew Stafford just finished his fourth season with the Rams and 16th overall. During his time in Los Angeles, the former Georgia Bulldogs star led the Rams to a Super Bowl win during the 2021 season and was named to his second Pro Bowl in 2023.