Lombardi Drops Bombshell: Raiders’ Mole Exposed

The Raiders have always been one of the hot-button organizations in the NFL and the haters around the organization sometimes feel just as passionate as the fans.

Maybe the biggest ‘Raider Hater’ on the planet is media personality Michael Lombardi, who was an executive with the team 20 years ago.

Since being fired by the Raiders, Lombardi has been spending his years criticizing the team at every opportunity.

Lombardi slowed his roll for the 22 months that his son was the team’s offensive coordinator under Josh McDaniels, but when his son was fired along with McDaniels in 2023, the vitriol was back.

This week, Lombardi spent a healthy portion of an hour-long podcast trashing Davis and head coach Antonio Pierce. He also threw a stray at a team employee not many Raider fans are familiar with.

Tom Delaney is listed as the Raiders’ Senior Vice President and Director of Football Administration, and if you’re familiar with him, it probably isn’t because you’ve heard his voice or seen him on camera.

The team website says Delaney is in his 24th year with the Raiders, and according to Lombardi, Delaney is the owner’s eyes and ears in the building.

Lombardi worked with Delaney in the early stages of his career, and apparently he doesn’t think a lot of him.

“We hired Tommy Delaney out of the f—-ing pro shop, and all of a sudden, Tommy Delaney is now f—-ing running the whole g—-d— thing. Two for one deal out there coming out. I mean, it’s unbelievable,” Lombardi said on The GM Shuffle podcast.

“But [Davis] listens to Delaney. Why? I don’t know,” Lombardi continued. “I don’t know why he would listen to Delaney. Delaney’s eyes and ears in the building. So he’s got everything going on. This building needs a cleansing. They need an exorcism out there.”

It doesn’t matter what Lombardi thinks of Delaney, or anyone else in the Raider organization, but it’s interesting that he essentially calls Delaney the “mole” in the building.

If Delaney reports to Davis on what he sees in the building, does it really matter?

If anything, it sounds like Lombardi is accusing Delaney of stealing a role similar to what he once had in the organization.

Going back a couple of decades, Lombardi was called a “fox in the hen house” by former Raiders head coach Art Shell.

It’s a story worth digging into if you don’t know it already.