About The Dynasty…
If you're a Patriots fan (like your faithful correspondent), you're probably disappointed in The Dynasty.
Expectations vs. Reality.
"When reality falls short of expectations, it can bring disappointment, frustration, or anxiety."
Yeah.
That.
I'm guessing you expected something different; something that celebrated the New England Patriots unparalleled, twenty year run of division, conference, and Super Bowl wins. Then again, this is the team and the coach that gave us "It is what it is."
We probably should've seen this coming.
Expectations
I hoped I would learn what “Pink Stripes” meant. How did Tom Brady and the offense evolve over those 20 years? Why was Malcolm Butler benched for SB 52? I hoped, most of all, to gain some insight into greatness; the how of the New England Patriots dominating the NFL - a league predicated on parity, a league that measures dynasties in 5-year chunks. How did they do it for two decades?
I didn’t find out any of those things. Okay, I didn’t find out about “Pink Stripes” or Malcolm Butler or get to see a white board exercise describing the Perkins-Erhardt offense. I did gain an appreciation for what it takes to achieve greatness and also, the price that inevitably comes due.
The Players
Documentaries aren't a simple recitation of facts. They aren't necessarily objective. There is a point of view and to effectively get its message across, it has to tell a story.
All good stories have heroes.
And villains.
Yes, Bill Belichick comes off as the "villain" in The Dynasty. No, it isn't fair. But framed by the baleful eye of the camera (the filmmaker seems to revel in holding the unblinking lens on Belichick for that extra second following a terse response, as Belichick glares back with an unambiguous look of scorn and contempt), it's hard not to think the villain is the role Belichick was born to play. In some ways, Belichick is - in my view - more the tragic hero of the story, but the documentary gives us few opportunities to see Belichick in a sympathetic light. Perhaps Belichick is neither Othello or Iago but in fact both. Obsessed, vain and jealous; cunning, ambitious and vengeful.
In the final episode, Belichick briefly gets his due as a coach with the SB 53 gameplan that held the Rams and their league-leading scoring offense to just 3 points. It felt like an afterthought, a back-handed compliment at best.
Some of the local pigskin pundits and bobbleheads have considered whether the true villain of the story is owner Robert Kraft; a narrative that casts Kraft as Dr. Frankenstein with Belichick as the monster he creates and ultimately cannot control. Given recent comments from Devin McCourty and Rodney Harrison, it would seem that a lot of the positive comments regarding Belichick were left on the cutting room floor. Clearly, this was an intentional decision on the part of The Dynasty's creators, author Jeff Benedict and director Matthew Hamachek.
Was that fair to Belichick? No, but I don't know if that's the right question.
Why did they see it that way?
"Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."
-Vince Lombardi
I think, in many ways, The Dynasty asks a simple, yet difficult question: Do the ends always justify the means? Would you do anything to win?
Or do you believe it's the means that justify the ends?
That Robert Kraft is seen as the man who threw Bill Belichick under the documentarian's bus may not be fair, either, but with all of the many controversies that surrounded the Patriots during The Dynasty, it's notable there was no mention of the Orchids of Asia Day Spa.
"We worked for Bill, but we played for Tom."
-Danny Amendola
Tom Brady is the obvious, if complicated, hero of the story. No notes on that.
Reality
I had always downplayed the "Palace Intrigue at 1 Patriots Place" narratives as nothing more than the workplace drama we all deal with at certain points in our lives, but that ignored important context: The NFL. Futbol may have a World Cup but the National Football League has a Super Bowl. Sorry God; they own Sunday. The interplay of three of the most important, powerful, and famous personalities involved in that world probably does deserve tabloid headline treatment, and the attention to the evolving personalities and shifting power dynamics among the three main players that it gets in The Dynasty. You don't achieve what Kraft, Belichick, and Brady achieved without a massive ego; an enormous, gigantic, very big, very large, XXXXL ego.
The inherent tension in those relationships as they evolved over 20 years was certainly enough of a challenge to the sustained excellence the Patriots achieved but there was more, so much more they had to overcome.
Spygate, Aaron Hernandez, Deflategate, the Jimmy GQ flirtation, Trump, Alex Guerrero…
Oh yeah. Donald Trump. I'd almost forgotten that. Or, as Freud would say, I'd chosen not to remember.
Yes, there are rough moments for Patriots fans, especially in the first 6 episodes, but history is like that, whether or not we want it to be like that.
There are also some truly exhilarating moments for Patriots fans in The Dynasty, as well. The kind that will have you looking for those "3 Game to Glory" DVDs.
Was it good? Was it worth it? Well, I wish there was more of it, even before hearing McCourty's and Harrison's comments. I think there's more of the story to be told. I was fantasizing just yesterday about a 3+ hour Christopher Nolan film of the 2016 season - with the backdrop of the Deflategate suspension, Brady's mother Galynn unable to attend games because she was in chemo for breast cancer, culminating in SB 51 and the greatest comeback in the history of comebacks.
Maybe that should be its own 10-part documentary.
What Did We Learn?
As noted above…,
I hoped, most of all, to gain some insight into how they did it; the how of the New England Patriots dominating the NFL - a league predicated on parity, a league that measures dynasties in 5-year chunks - for two decades.
Well?
One of the more uncomfortable moments in The Dynasty came courtesy of Scott Pioli, as an introduction of sorts to the Spygate episode. The implication was that the Patriots - and Belichick specifically - were addicted to winning, and like any addict, they would do anything to chase that next high.
Darth Hoodie and the Cheatriots.
It casts a pall over everything that follows, Spygate, the true crime drama of Aaron Hernandez, all the way up to Deflategate.
Then, the narrative takes a turn.
Brady had become as much of a villain as Belichick at this point but over the course of his two-year challenge to the attempt by Roger Goodell and the NFL to destroy his reputation, Brady took off the metaphoric mask of the villain and became the hero again. He fought "the man." Hell, he was freakin' Superman, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way!
With his reputation and his legacy on the line in SB 49, he led what was then the biggest 4th quarter comeback in Super Bowl history. A Tom Brady record that would be broken by Tom Brady just two years later.
Greatest of all time. No qualifiers. No footnotes. No community notes.
GOAT.
Watching Brady fighting back tears toward the end of that final episode, I felt like I was watching a broken-hearted man talking about the end of a twenty year marriage.
Maybe that's the answer to how they did it.
They were unflinchingly dedicated to a single goal and they were willing to give their hearts, their bodies - and their souls - to achieve that goal. Greatness. Excellence. They loved each other for that, for what they gave each other, for the knowledge that whatever happened, whatever the situation, they would never give up, they would be there for each other when it mattered most.
28-3.
But human beings aren't just two sides of a coin; they're more like the twelve facets of a dodecahedron. Life, in the best of circumstances, is complicated. The hurt feelings, the grudges, and pressures of living your life in public - under a microscope, really - were ultimately too much. Like everything else, it ended badly (or else it wouldn't have ended).
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
Was it all, the good and the bad, worth it?
"Fuck 'em all."
-Devin McCourty
Hell, yeah.
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