Reactions to “The Dynasty”

PatsWickedPissah said:

OK. Where I differ with you is that I put the SB loss to the Eagles as a huge negative for BB. Not playing Butler pissed off the players and especially TFB. Yes, you could say that the other players on the D are responsible for that loss but were Butler to play say after sitting out the opening D series or even Q1, then BOTH the players and the D coaches (including BB) would clearly own that ugly loss.

I enjoyed TFB's huge SB win vs Mahomes even as a BUC.
I loved our Dynastic runs.
Although I have Apple TV+ from reading here I don't want to watch & wallow in the negativity and revisionism expressed.

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Whether it pissed them off or not, they WON afterward.

And the people who were really pissed were guys like Amendola who weren't even in New England and didn't win after that.

Guys like Slater and McCourty talked about 2 things sending the wrong vibe: Belichick and Brady's relationship and second their treatment for kneeling across the NFL and its relevance to New England and Trump

@upstater1

PatsWickedPissah said:

OK. Where I differ with you is that I put the SB loss to the Eagles as a huge negative for BB. Not playing Butler pissed off the players and especially TFB. Yes, you could say that the other players on the D are responsible for that loss but were Butler to play say after sitting out the opening D series or even Q1, then BOTH the players and the D coaches (including BB) would clearly own that ugly loss.

I enjoyed TFB's huge SB win vs Mahomes even as a BUC.
I loved our Dynastic runs.
Although I have Apple TV+ from reading here I don't want to watch & wallow in the negativity and revisionism expressed.

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Wouldn't you want to watch it for the game hilights, there are many great moments? I can watch Brady to Branch, Moss, Edelman, and Gronk over and over.

We need to fill our time and remenice especially now that the Pats are probably going to be mediocre to bad for awhile.

Is this series mostly about the drama? I haven't read most of this threads, but noone is talking about the game hilights. I have no plans on getting Appletv.

venecol said:

No, he couldn't keep them both. After the '18 SB, Bill showed Bob he could win on D, and convinced him Tom was about to hit the cliff. Bob made a decision (which he regrets) to keep Bill. Things were too dysfunctional for both to stay. Tom said so himself, he wasn't going to sign a new contract, the way things had gone, and he was done with it. It was either Bill or Tom. Bob chose Bill.

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You don't go out and publicly trash Bill then. Take ownership (pun intended, though not really a pun) of a decision that HE, Kraft, had to agree with.

Kraft's screwed up twice. First with letting Brady walk (just give him the contract EARLIER when he wanted it!), and now with trying to pull a Sox-to-Francona-like hit job on Bill.

Yuck.

50-yard-line said:

You don't go out and publicly trash Bill then. Take ownership (pun intended, though not really a pun) of a decision that HE, Kraft, had to agree with.

Kraft's screwed up twice. First with letting Brady walk (just give him the contract EARLIER when he wanted it!), and now with trying to pull a Sox-to-Francona-like hit job on Bill.

Yuck.

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Personally, I think Bill's doing it to himself. As a former IBWT guy, it's hard to watch. It's like he's a caricature of Bill Belichick. His evolution from hard ass to nearly impossible to be around is really fascinating to watch. All these things changed him: the winning narcotic, the AH situation, the brain drain, and Brady's growth to the point where he no longer needed Bill made Bill withdraw to his basest instinct: negative reinforcement and militant discipline. His lack of trust borders on a Nixonian level of paranoia.

Steve102 said:

Personally, I think Bill's doing it to himself. As a former IBWT guy, it's hard to watch. It's like he's a caricature of Bill Belichick. His evolution from hard ass to nearly impossible to be around is really fascinating to watch. All these things changed him: the winning narcotic, the AH situation, the brain drain, and Brady's growth to the point where he no longer needed Bill made Bill withdraw to his basest instinct: negative reinforcement and militant discipline. His lack of trust borders on a Nixonian level of paranoia.

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And Kraft should just stay above it all instead of trying to pass all the bad and collect all the good.

Steve102 said:

Personally, I think Bill's doing it to himself. As a former IBWT guy, it's hard to watch. It's like he's a caricature of Bill Belichick. His evolution from hard ass to nearly impossible to be around is really fascinating to watch. All these things changed him: the winning narcotic, the AH situation, the brain drain, and Brady's growth to the point where he no longer needed Bill made Bill withdraw to his basest instinct: negative reinforcement and militant discipline. His lack of trust borders on a Nixonian level of paranoia.

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I think the Mangini betrayal was a huge turning point also. Plus…age sets people in their ways even of those ways are no longer productive.

50-yard-line said:

You don't go out and publicly trash Bill then. Take ownership (pun intended, though not really a pun) of a decision that HE, Kraft, had to agree with.

Kraft's screwed up twice. First with letting Brady walk (just give him the contract EARLIER when he wanted it!), and now with trying to pull a Sox-to-Francona-like hit job on Bill.

Yuck.

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That's a different matter. My guess, Kraft was done with Bill and knew firing him would have negative implications from the fan base. He chose to be candid, so everyone saw what he dealt with during the end.

Right or wrong, that's what he's done. I personally appreciate it because now we know things that would've never seen the light of day. I'm not so heavily invested in any of these characters to let this upset me in any way. It certainly doesn't take away from my feelings as a Pats fan. I wear my Pats cap more in public now than ever before. I enjoyed the dynasty (real one). It's not like I didn't already know that Tom was a nice guy, Bill was a ****, and Bob was a buffoon.

UGAPatsfan said:

I think the Mangini betrayal was a huge turning point also. Plus…age sets people in their ways even of those ways are no longer productive.

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100% agree. It's really a shame. The guy should really be able to rest on his record and be proud. No one has done what he's done, haters be damned.

venecol said:

That's a different matter. My guess, Kraft was done with Bill and knew firing him would have negative implications from the fan base. He chose to be candid, so everyone saw what he dealt with during the end.

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I'll retweet that. I think that Bill became so unbearable that there's a big helping of "see what he was like" especially at the end. It's gotta be a breath of fresh air down there.

50-yard-line said:

He's a weasel.

He could have kept Brady if he wanted. Full stop. He could have said to BB: "Look, this is about the fans as much as anything, and they want Brady retiring here, and I want Tommy retiring here. He's staying and he's playing. Make it work."

Instead, he whines. I've lost so much respect for the guy in watching this hit job.

Weasel.

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I found it very odd when Kraft was talking like in third person about Brady realizing that Belichick was going to remain the Head Coach going forward. Like as if it had nothing to do with him. He made a decision to stick with Belichick over Brady. Either because after Super Bowl LIII his confidence in Belichick's abilities as coach were restored, or because he was afraid of letting Belichick go after a Super Bowl win. In any case, he made a decision, but he never to this day owned up to this decision. Instead he sat there in the interview for the series calling Belichick a schmuck and other things while Belichick was still employed by the Patriots.

Steve102 said:

I'll retweet that. I think that Bill became so unbearable that there's a big helping of "see what he was like" especially at the end. It's gotta be a breath of fresh air down there.

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Those were the quotes from people inside the building, like a huge weight/shadow was lifted. What a bummer. Wish he could've transitioned, because the talent was still there.

The first half of episode 9 felt like a TB12 infomercial which is interesting because I know Brady has scaled back that business to some extent but I get that he/the doc needed to show how important the relationship with Guerrero is to Brady. The second half of the episode wasn't fun. That season just felt like a slog for the group as a whole and it was obvious things behind the scenes were taking a turn for the worse despite all the whistling past the graveyard from some on here that year.

I always assumed the cracks in the foundation started with the Guerrero situation but it seems like (at least according to the way this doc portrays it) the cracks were already there and the Guerrero issue is when the foundation started to crumble. This was really the first episode where it feels like Bill took a beating but it was mostly through his own decisions. Without opening a can of worms, Bill's political endorsement flies in the face of everything he always preached about staying out of the media and basically keeping a low profile off the field and the players had every right to be pissed off about it. I would guess Bill probably didn't expect it to be read at a campaign rally but he should probably have realized the kind of guy he was dealing with. Brady and Kraft's relationship with Trump also seemed to kind of get glossed over which I think is kind of unfair to Bill. In the end of the day I think that whole thing was thrown in there for somewhat of a cheap little attention grabber to start the episode and less of a true issue that lingered but I could be naive on that front. The weird secrecy around the Butler benching and how pissed off the players were seemed to be similar to the Pete Carroll decision to throw at the goal line a few years prior. It caused a rift with some of the players who honestly wanted to be done with the season and the team.

In episode 10 the stuff leading up to the Rams Super Bowl and how Bill switched over to a zone scheme was pretty cool and showed what made Bill so great for all those years. I think it also kind of reflected the prior year's Super Bowl to some extent. Bill making a ballsy call and sticking to his guns. One game it didn't work and one game it did. I don't know if it was a weird editing thing right after the Rams Super Bowl they show Brady saying he wasn't going to sign another contract and his family saying he knew he couldn't work with Bill anymore and that it was time to move on. Seemed weird to completely neglect the fact that Brady did come back for another year and signed a one year contract (basically) after they showed him saying he wouldn't.

Johnathan Kraft's reaction to Brady leaving seemed a little odd to me. It was kind of a "It sucks but oh well" and a shrug. Brady seemed to get emotional immediately when talking about leaving which is nice as a Patriots fan to show how much his time here really meant to him. The last 5 minutes of the Bill vs Brady discussion seemed a little clunky to me but I guess it was an attempt to bookend the with the beginning where it was more about Bill and his decisions at the time which helped launch the dynasty.

All in all I thought the documentary was okay. Didn't get a lot of new information out of it more just confirming/validating some of what we already knew or maybe just expanding on the severity of some of the situations. Out of the big 3 the only one who I thought came out looking good was Brady and that isn't a surprise since Brady has the least to prove out of any of them. I thought Kraft was pretty candid almost to a fault as it seems clear that this is his "Look how important I was too" campaign to get into the hall of fame while he's still alive. Slater and McCourty were a pretty big surprise as far as how candid they were. When I think of "Patriot Way" aka Bill guys, I think of those two and probably Bruschi so to see 2/3 of that group being very honest about some of the things Bill was doing was eye opening. Bill also didn't do himself many favors but I get that he was still actively coaching the team when this was filmed so he is going to be his usual guarded self. Eventually I would like to hear his side of the story directly from him. Maybe we get it maybe we don't but if I had to guess he didn't love the way he looked in this so maybe this pushes him to put out something of his own in the next few years. I am also still holding out hope that we get a Bill and Brady sit down one day where they're both removed from the game and can reminisce since at least publicly they seem to be on much better terms.

PF_SU said:

I found it very odd when Kraft was talking like in third person about Brady realizing that Belichick was going to remain the Head Coach going forward. Like as if it had nothing to do with him. He made a decision to stick with Belichick over Brady. Either because after Super Bowl LIII his confidence in Belichick's abilities as coach were restored, or because he was afraid of letting Belichick go after a Super Bowl win. In any case, he made a decision, but he never to this day owned up to this decision. Instead he sat there in the interview for the series calling Belichick a schmuck and other things while Belichick was still employed by the Patriots.

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The series did mention that he regretted the decision, I think in a previous episode. I may be wrong. Maybe I read it somewhere.

Bella*chick said:

The documentary makes clear Bill didn’t expect or even necessarily want Brady to get so good. He wanted credit for his system and Brady was a real threat to his complete control. Egos always seem to get in the way in stories like these.

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10 years ago I would have laughed at this because it sounds so absurd. What happened since though at least gives pause to think about.

Steve102 said:

Never had a boss you were afraid of?

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No; I would never stick around a boss I was afraid of. That's not a way to spend 8 hours of my day every day.

Even if most of them were, I blame Brady for not doing it. He had the clout and security to do it.

So I guess it’s too bad that Bill was a Defensive Genius again and beat the Rams for SB #6 holding the best offense in the league to 3 points. This made Kraft “have to” keep Bill instead of Tom since no way could he fire his genius coach. Just think how different the ending could have been if the Pats lost that game or if TB led them to victory with an offensive blowout. Thought winning was supposed to be the “cure all”..

Steve102 said:

I don't think it is. People are people. These guys are 20 somethings coming out of school, and Bill loved to embarrass everyone, regardless of rank, as we've learned. He thrived on intimidation.

I can tell you I had some real pricks for bosses in my 20s and even into my 30s. It wasn't until I got older that I got to the point I didn't give an eff about them and their ****. Now in my 50s, I am much more apt to tell someone in authority to eff themselves as I am to take grief from them. Luckily, I have good bosses now and don't have that problem. I am sure my experience is not unique, in my industry or in any other.

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OT: but as was always my failing, on my last job I told off my boss, the CEO of the company I co-founded. No F words or such.
Next BOD meeting with me not invited I was gone.
After the shock wore off (I loved the job) it was the best thing that happened to me Retired early on a big fat severance of 4 weeks pay.
Happy every day since.

50-yard-line said:

You don't go out and publicly trash Bill then. Take ownership (pun intended, though not really a pun) of a decision that HE, Kraft, had to agree with.

Kraft's screwed up twice. First with letting Brady walk (just give him the contract EARLIER when he wanted it!), and now with trying to pull a Sox-to-Francona-like hit job on Bill.

Yuck.

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He did. He said he said he sided with Bill and regrets it now. Bill made his own hit job. You had a bunch of guys who were Bill Belichick guys doing the hitting. Clearly a lot of these players felt a certain way.

Since1960 said:

So I guess it’s too bad that Bill was a Defensive Genius again and beat the Rams for SB #6 holding the best offense in the league to 3 points. This made Kraft “have to” keep Bill instead of Tom since no way could he fire his genius coach. Just think how different the ending could have been if the Pats lost that game or if TB led them to victory with an offensive blowout. Thought winning was supposed to be the “cure all”..

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People don't want to accept that it became a binary choice between Brady and Belichick at that point. It wasn't a situation where Kraft could tell Belichick to keep Tom and treat him differently. Tom was no longer tolerating Bill's treatment. He wasn't going to stay unless significant changes were made to how Bill ran the team.

Kraft went with the coach who just won a defensively driven Super Bowl who in theory should have had a longer shelf life, than the QB in his 40's. It wasn't some crazy decision either. Brady realistically played well for about 2 more years and fell off in the third (though not bad enough that he absolutely had to retire). What was unexpected, and most of this fanbase would likely acknowledge, is that the mythologizing about Bill Belichick and his magic system fell apart as soon as Brady left and he turned back into the guy from Cleveland and the team progressively got worse until his tenure was untenable.

But at the end of the day it came down to a choice and Belichick was the safer choice. Even if everything on the Brady end went exactly the same, nobody expected Bill Belichick to tank the way he did and look completely incompetent and hire goons like Patricia.

lancerman said:

, nobody expected Bill Belichick to tank the way he did and look completely incompetent and hire goons like Patricia.

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Agree with everything except the last line. Some of us expected it and saw it coming.

The success of the 2nd half of the dynasty was largely from players brought in 2014 and earlier.

The up and comers were becoming few and far between as BB started first striking out consistently in the draft starting in 2014 but it was masked by the veterans and quality free agents he still brought it.

But eventually those veterans leave or retire, and those free agents are or get expensive if they perform. So BB has been bottom of the barrel when it comes to drafting for 10 years.

It's not sustainable and you can clearly see the team starting to sink in their last SB from the 2018 season, who barely won it with a bunch of 30 something at the end of their prime or past it.

As more of those high performing veterans left, the team just kept getting worse and worse, until you have a Pats team that sucks. Even that 2020 Pats team that made the playoff was a mirage. They won lots of close games almost by fluke ie they won in Buffalo in a storm making 1 pass. Then they showed their true talent level getting trounced by Buffalo in the playoffs by what 40 something to nil?