The presence of new coach Pete Carroll is a good place to start to understand how much the leaguewide perception of the Raiders has changed since Tom Brady became a minority owner.

Before Brady’s arrival as the de facto director of football operations, the Raiders were an afterthought for Carroll, the longtime USC and Seahawks coach who spent last season on a one-year coaching sabbatical.

It was never Carroll’s intention to make the one-season layoff a permanent thing. But he wasn’t going to return to the sidelines for just any job. And the Raiders were not high on his list.

Until Brady came aboard.

“As soon as it was announced, it immediately shifted my thought about what this opportunity was about,” said Carroll, hired by owner Mark Davis in January.

In the three months since, Carroll’s admiration for Brady has only grown. And his belief in the difference Brady can make for an organization that has reached the playoffs twice in the past 22 seasons has only grown, too.

“Dealing with Tom is a moment-to-moment recollection of who he is,” Carroll said. “He’s such a tremendous competitor. He competes with everything that he’s doing. He’s really a clear communicator, directed focus, going back to understanding who he is, to great depths. He’s an amazing asset.”

Part of Davis’ plan

Davis could not have been clearer about his motivation to add Brady as a limited partner owner. Davis spent the past 13 years trying to find his football leader, someone he could trust with making major decisions that would shape the club’s long-range future.

But he always failed to find the right person.

There were varying reasons for the missteps, including when Davis was forced to move on from Jon Gruden four years into a 10-year contract.

From inexperience to friction between the coach and general manager to decisions being made out of self-preservation, Davis has gone through eight head coaches and six general managers since taking control of the franchise after Al Davis’ death in 2011.

Davis wanted to try something different with Brady, the former star quarterback who won seven of the 10 Super Bowls he played in. Brady saw firsthand how championship teams were built, stripped down and rebuilt again in New England and Tampa Bay.

Davis saw great value in adding that expertise.

“It brought somebody with football acumen into the organization at the top level,” he said.

By adding Brady as an owner rather than a hired president of football operations, Davis eliminated the possibility of Brady operating out of survival. Brady isn’t just part of the Raiders’ family. He has a vested financial interest in it and the security to make sound decisions rather than urgent ones.

“Somebody that wasn’t going to be on a five-year contract or a 10-year contract,” Davis said. “This was a lifetime deal.”

Working in tandem

That doesn’t mean Brady will make all the decisions — Carroll and new general manager John Spytek will run the day-to-day operations — but he will have a significant say in the Raiders’ long-range direction and is consulted on just about everything Carroll and Spytek do.

Brady can also cast the deciding vote on any disagreements between Carroll and Spytek, one that carries respect from a coach Brady played against and a general manager for whom he has a long-term relationship.

Brady and Spytek were teammates at the University of Michigan and spent three years together in Tampa Bay, where Brady led the Buccaneers to a win in Super Bowl 55 and Spytek was a key member of the organization.

Spytek is well aware of the perfectionist who is considered the greatest NFL player ever.

“He has a standard that we all have to live up to,” he said.

Presence already being felt

Brady was heavily involved in the decision to pursue a trade for Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. When that fell through, he was a big part of the decision to trade for Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith and reuniting him with Carroll.

Brady is also a strong advocate for making the Raiders a cutting-edge organization in strength and conditioning, game management and analytics.

“I didn’t know how he would be to work with,” Carroll said. “I just competed against him and listened to him over the years and had great admiration and respect. But he is really grounded in his mentality, and that’s what makes him so valuable to us, because we can draw from that.”

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at [email protected]. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on X.