New Michael Holley book: War Room - Bill Belichick and the Patriot Legacy

[jmt57]

Great news. But how can he be in 3 draft rooms at the same time???

That was one of my first thoughts also. Since the draft now takes three days to complete my guess is that he spends one day with each person and their team.

It's funny that a 7-round draft now takes three days to complete; it used to be all done in one day and was much longer - 12 rounds in the 80's and early 90's, 17 rounds in the 70's - with twice as many players drafted back then.

 

[bucky]

One each day; it'll be interesting to see what order (I'd guess NE-KC-ATL).

That'll be an interesting travel experience. It's not exactly like driving from Foxborough to NY and then to Philly.

It would be very interesting to have access to the 3 draft rooms at the same time to compare the boards, see how they react to each others' picks, etc.

 

[bucky]

I disagree about Patriot Reign a little bit. Thought it was an enjoyable read, but really superficial given the amazing access he had. Felt like he should have had the material to go a little deeper. But it was fun to read I guess.

Totally agree. It was almost a tease - a lot of great info, but leaves you wanting so much more that I'm sure Holley could have delivered. In reality though, I don't think it was realistic for Holley to deliver as much info as we could possibly want.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

I disagree about Patriot Reign a little bit. Thought it was an enjoyable read, but really superficial given the amazing access he had. Felt like he should have had the material to go a little deeper. But it was fun to read I guess.

You might be looking for an undercover expose. Or a former employees tell all. Trouble with those is they are often misleading and slanted resulting in skewed or meaningless conclusions....and they don't result in a second book...

As a real journalist Holley knew that and what he set out to do was learn as much about the inner workings of this organization as he could and utilize that information to help him understand what they do and why they do it and give his readers the benefit of that insight. Had Ron Borges spent that amount of time imbedded with the team his read on them and his agenda driven mantra likely would not have changed one iota - he'd just have had a lot of anti Belichick secrets to tell along the way to underscore his existing agenda. Michael went in without an axe to grind and just wanted to see for himself why they did things the way they did and document the outcome (which by the time his book came out was increasingly clear...they were building a dynasty).

Had the ambitious yet insecure Felger done the book it would have been unreadable (he's really a sports mediot, not a writer and certainly not a journalist) and we'd have known all the little secrets he uncovered long before the book hit the stands because in order to advance his radio career and prove to his peers he was an insider he'd have leaked them. Felger used to car pool to the stadium with a certain QB until he started ripping other athletes and revealing things he was told off the record to advance his radio career. He also used to get tutored on the the ins and outs of both the on and off the field systems by Belichick and Jonathan Kraft until he started attacking their approach for the same reason. Nowadays listening to his infrequent interviews with any team insider is almost painful as he goes into attack mode or attempts to set them up and they either spar with him or give him canned answers...and the result is we the listeners learn nothing beyond Felger has redundant agendas.

I'm sure Michael saw and learned things about the Bruschi's that weren't included in that book because he didn't need to include them to write a good story. Tedy obviously knew he could trust Holley to write a good story about his life without exploiting his family based on the way he handled the book about his team. Ditto Halberstam and Education of a Coach. His book was a journalists homage to the father son coaching phenomenon, not a titilating tell all BB biography which neither Bill nor any associate worth interviewing would ever have cooperated with. Real journalists don't set their subjects up to be personally embarassed or professionally humiliated for cooperating. You don't gain trust that way. You treat them fairly, and part of that is having some discretion in exactly what you use and how you use it relative to what you are allowed to witness or know. Some of it remains in background simply helping you form and frame conclusions you share with your readers with a greater level of confidence. One approach may help you sell one book. The other allows you to author many bestsellers.

 

[aluminum seats]

You might be looking for an undercover expose. Or a former employees tell all. Trouble with those is they are often misleading and slanted resulting in skewed or meaningless conclusions....and they don't result in a second book...

As a real journalist Holley knew that and what he set out to do was learn as much about the inner workings of this organization as he could and utilize that information to help him understand what they do and why they do it and give his readers the benefit of that insight. Had Ron Borges spent that amount of time imbedded with the team his read on them and his agenda driven mantra likely would not have changed one iota - he'd just have had a lot of anti Belichick secrets to tell along the way to underscore his existing agenda. Michael went in without an axe to grind and just wanted to see for himself why they did things the way they did and document the outcome (which by the time his book came out was increasingly clear...they were building a dynasty).

Had the ambitious yet insecure Felger done the book it would have been unreadable (he's really a sports mediot, not a writer and certainly not a journalist) and we'd have known all the little secrets he uncovered long before the book hit the stands because in order to advance his radio career and prove to his peers he was an insider he'd have leaked them. Felger used to car pool to the stadium with a certain QB until he started ripping other athletes and revealing things he was told off the record to advance his radio career. He also used to get tutored on the the ins and outs of both the on and off the field systems by Belichick and Jonathan Kraft until he started attacking their approach for the same reason. Nowadays listening to his infrequent interviews with any team insider is almost painful as he goes into attack mode or attempts to set them up and they either spar with him or give him canned answers...and the result is we the listeners learn nothing beyond Felger has redundant agendas.

I'm sure Michael saw and learned things about the Bruschi's that weren't included in that book because he didn't need to include them to write a good story. Tedy obviously knew he could trust Holley to write a good story about his life without exploiting his family based on the way he handled the book about his team. Ditto Halberstam and Education of a Coach. His book was a journalists homage to the father son coaching phenomenon, not a titilating tell all BB biography which neither Bill nor any associate worth interviewing would ever have cooperated with. Real journalists don't set their subjects up to be personally embarassed or professionally humiliated for cooperating. You don't gain trust that way. You treat them fairly, and part of that is having some discretion in exactly what you use and how you use it relative to what you are allowed to witness or know. Some of it remains in background simply helping you form and frame conclusions you share with your readers with a greater level of confidence. One approach may help you sell one book. The other allows you to author many bestsellers.

I think you have to unpack all this a little bit. I should note, by the way, that I read the book a pretty long time ago, and don’t remember much of it specifically (which may be sort of the point.) When I said the book read as superficial to me, it didn't mean I was looking for "an expose." I meant that when I was reading it, for long stretches it felt to me like it could have been written by anyone—that it didn’t seem produced by someone with the access Holly had. Belichick’s a smart guy, and he gave him the access. It’s then incumbent on Holly to write the best book he could. Far from being misleading or slanted, more depth would have presented a clearer picture.

The fact that Borges or Felger would have written a worse book is irrelevent.

Your last point—the role of discretion for a journalist both in the short & long terms—is an interesting one. As a matter of self-interest, sure, a writer may withhold information in order to maintain access and write more books. While there’s nothing particularly diabolical about that, it’s certainly not altruistic either. It’s for personal gain, even though the person buying your book may be, on some level, short-changed because you didn’t write in as much detail and depth as you could have.