Some final thoughts on "The Dynasty" and its portrayal of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft

BOSTON -- "The Dynasty" is over, both in real life and in documentary form.

With regard to the former aspect, the work is currently being done by Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf to get the Patriots back to playoff form, as the New England franchise operates as just another team in the NFL.

As for the latter, the five-week, 10-episode journey through the ups and (mostly the) downs of the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era is complete, with the final two episodes debuting on Apple TV+ last week.

And while the nitty-gritty specifics have been covered in detail ...

Review: Episode 1, "Backup Plan" and Episode 2, "The Snow Bowl"

Review: Episode 3, "Borrowed Time" and Episode 4, "Spygate"

Review: Episode 5, "Torn" and Episode 6, "At All Costs"

Review: Episode 7, "Under Pressure

Review: Episode 8, "Score To Settle

Review: Episode 9, "Breaking Point"

Review: Episode 10, "End Game"

... there are still some lingering thoughts that are simmering after sitting on the series for a few days.

Why did Robert Kraft lay bare the behind-the-scenes dysfunction with Brady and Belichick?

Robert Kraft going deep on the dysfunctional relationship between Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in their final years together was certainly compelling and interesting from a viewer's perspective.

But from Kraft's perspective, what did he have to gain by divulging all of that?

Presumably, given his "I was just trying to hold it together the best I could" line that was used in the trailer, it seems like the owner wants to let it be known that he had to put in a lot of work to keep the dynasty rolling as long as he could. The net result of that effort seems to have been the Super Bowl victory in 2018.

It's just difficult to see what the real benefit is for Kraft to explain in detail every issue that Belichick and Brady had with each other, especially when it stands in such contrast to what Brady and Belichick were willing to divulge. 

Bill Belichick's comment on Tom Brady leaving the Patriots is insane

Tom Brady didn't get the contract offer he wanted in the summer of 2019, and he left as a free agent in March of 2020. When discussing the phone call he received from Brady (and Kraft) to learn that the quarterback was leaving, Belichick said this:

"At that point in time, I think he made the right and the best decision."

Belichick is talking about the greatest player of all time there. He's saying the best option for the greatest player of all time was to leave his team.

That should never be the case!

If you are fortunate enough to employ the greatest player of all time, you should be sure to maintain a situation where staying on your team remains the right and best decision forever. A resigned acceptance that it was best for the greatest player of all time to walk out the door is baffling, and it will never make sense.

Saying it was right and good for Brady to leave is admitting that the foundation of the program had deteriorated, to the point where Tampa Bay was a better spot for the quarterback. The nonchalance of that statement from Belichick is jarring.

It's not unprecedented, though, as "The Last Dance" neatly documented how seemingly every decision-maker involved with the Chicago Bulls in the '90s accepted the plain reality that the 1997-98 season would be the final year that Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson would be with the team. Watching that drama play out 20-plus years later was maddening, as the obvious and wise move for a franchise would be not ending things with the greatest player of all time. Yet in both cases, the end has kind of just been accepted.

"This is life," Kraft said of Brady's departure, "and it's what happens."

It didn't have to happen! Nevertheless.

Was it really a "Bill Belichick hit piece"?

Spend 11 seconds on Patriots Twitter, and you'll see dozens of fans referring to the entire project as a "Belichick hit piece." Call me crazy, but I don't see it that way.

Outside of the insinuation that Belichick could have and should have known that Aaron Hernandez was capable of murder and thus should have had the clairvoyance to trade him to a West Coast team, there really wasn't anything presented inaccurately. 

To anyone calling it a direct hit piece, I'd simply ask one question: What was presented incorrectly?

Belichick was a tough coach, and he was a brilliant coach. He was, for the most part, portrayed as such. And when given the opportunity to make himself look "better" in some situations, Belichick opted to go silent and/or have a staring contest with the camera lens.

(Also the inclusion of Matthew Slater and Devin McCourty -- two textbook Patriots Way players -- calling Belichick's letter to Donald Trump "hypocritical" helped drive home some real feelings from the locker room in the late stages of the dynasty era.)

Nobody was more protected than Tom Brady

The companion opinion to the "hit piece" assessment is that the entire series was made to make Kraft look good. (We'll cover that next.) But really, nobody in the series was more protected than Tom Brady.

Of all the subjects, only one person also had his mother, father and sister interviewed. (And there were a lot of interview clips from Brady's sister used in the series.) And when Brady opted to not discuss a subject (Spygate, Aaron Hernandez, Malcolm Butler benching), there was no ominous, brooding no-comment clip like there was with Belichick. Instead, Brady was just ... conspicuously absent from certain episodes and segments.

Brady wasn't pushed to actually talk about DeflateGate, outside of being asked if he wanted to respond to anything from the Wells Report or anything else from that era.

His closest confidantes -- Alex Guerrero, Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola -- were allowed to talk for him at times.

As stated, Brady was the greatest player of all time, so a certain level of respect can be expected from the filmmakers. But nobody else was handled with kid gloves in this series like Brady was.

Robert Kraft admitted plenty of fault

Whether it's been deemed a "puff piece" or a "vanity project" or an attempt to cement a spot in Canton for Robert Kraft, the owner has come under a lot of fire for this project. Many have even stated that Kraft (or the Krafts) had final cut on the project, based on the Kraft Dynasty LLC in the credits.

But, not even going back and reviewing everything, Kraft admitted all of these things:

--He wanted Drew Bledsoe to get his job back after injury in 2001, and he was ready to fire Belichick if sticking with Brady didn't work out.

--He got duped by Aaron Hernandez and believed he was a good person. If Kraft had final cut, the mic'd up clip of him insisting to Belichick that Hernandez had "such a good heart" would not have made the final version fo the show.

--He was willing to trade Tom Brady away after the tumultuous 2017 season. Doing so would have capped the dynasty at five Super Bowls as Brian Hoyer certainly wasn't going to lead the Patriots to glory in 2018.

--He determined that sticking with Belichick over Brady in 2018 was the right course forward. Brady then won a Super Bowl with the Bucs in 2020 and went 32-18 for Tampa Bay, while the Patriots went 29-38 in Belichick's four seasons without Brady. 

Kraft may have wanted to come across as the guy who kept things together for so long, but he also admitted to a lot of missteps along the way.

There was a lot of Donte Stallworth

If there was a tracker of who got the most screen time in this series, Donte Stallworth may come in third place behind Brady and Kraft. Stallworth was used to comment on a wide variety of Patriots topics, despite the fact that he really only spent one season with the team. Stallworth was a Patriot in 2007, and then he returned in 2012 for one game, before suffering an injury that ended his season (and his career). Yet he was there to comment on Aaron Hernandez (2010), the national anthem protests (2017), and seemingly every other topic in the series. All this from a player who had nothing to do with any Super Bowl-winning seasons. 

Meanwhile, Julian Edelman -- one of the most significant players in the entire Patriots dynasty -- barely got any screen time.

Howard Bryant, who spent some time writing about the Patriots for ESPN Boston, was also used as a definitive narrator of the dynasty, even getting the final word in the 28-3 episode and he was the final non-player/coach/owner voice at the end of the finale.

Perhaps Stallworth's and Bryant's interviews were just deemed to have been that great. But their presence in the docuseries is disproportionate to their involvement with the team.

Jon Bon Jovi

The funnier offshoot of that same thought is that Jon Bon Jovi sat down for an interview and was only used for one clip in the entire series.

Now, really, what did Jon Bon Jovi have to add to this documentary? Not much, we understand. But the thought of a whole crew setting up after either flying to get to Mr. Jovi or having him travel to them, only to use him for maybe five seconds in the series is humorous.

The credits also thanked a list of people whom I assume were interviewed only to not be used. That list included Snoop Dogg, Peyton Manning and Rex Ryan. Release the Snoop Dogg tapes!

Overall, was it a perfect series? Of course not. Every viewer wanted something different from the series, so there would always be complaints. Yet, similar to the 10-part "Man In The Arena" series or the numerous documentaries and specials that have been put together over the years, there were nuggets to be found. For close observers of the Patriots, that often required sitting through 40 minutes of rehash to get that new snippet of information or view that never-before-seen camcorder clip, but there was enough in this series for it to be useful in adding to the record about the most successful dynasty in NFL history.