When coach Invoice Belichick took the rostrum at Tom Brady’s Roast, he used the chance to take a dig on the 10-part docuseries “The Dynasty” in regards to the nice New England Patriots groups he coached.
“I’m so honored to be right here for the roast of Tom Brady on Netflix,” mentioned Belichick. “It’s to not be confused with the roast of Invoice Belichick on the 10-part Apple TV sequence.”
This sentiment that “The Dynasty” has an anti-Belichick slant, has been stoked publicly by former gamers (a few of whom participated within the documentary) and had gasoline thrown on it by the Boston sports activities media. In an interview with IndieWire, director Matt Hamachek brushed apart the criticism.
“I actually had no canine on this battle,” mentioned Hamachek. “I feel that a number of the response in all probability stems from Invoice now not being on the staff.”
What Hamachek is pointing to is how the docuseries’ largest twist, and the fruits of backstage drama it captured, occurred off-screen one month previous to the docuseries’ debut: In January 2024, Belichick was pushed out of the group by Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft, after teaching the staff for twenty-four seasons and to 6 Tremendous Bowl Championships.
“I’m nonetheless shocked,” mentioned Hamachek, after spending three years reporting on the inner-workings of the Patriots. “I assumed that Invoice Belichick would mainly be there till he retires, leaving on his personal phrases, and after he broke [Don] Shula’s file [for most coaching wins].”
Hamachek was image locked when the Belichick information hit ESPN, however acknowledged it’s not possible to not see his docuseries by way of the postscript lens of Kraft exiting the coach, who many have referred to as (together with Kraft) the best of all-time.
“I do not know what went into the choice making,” mentioned Hamachek. “However if you happen to watch the doc within the context of what occurred, and also you hearken to a number of the issues that Robert Kraft says, I feel you’ve an understanding, the breadcrumbs are actually there.”
Kraft, 83, greater than anybody, opened as much as Hamachek’s digicam, speaking about issues he as soon as publicly denied, together with the mounting rigidity between Belichick and Brady within the ultimate years, his wrestle to maintain the staff collectively, and the very fact he laid the Patriots’ Tremendous Bowl 52 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on the ft of Belichick for not enjoying cornerback Malcolm Butler.
“You get by way of the 2017 season, there have been moments the place the Krafts [Robert’s son Jonathan is team president] had denied publicly that there was any rigidity, or that it was dysfunctional,” mentioned Hamachek. “And it seems that there was different stuff occurring there.”
It’s towards this again drop that many have argued the sequence was a Kraft orchestrated hit job of Belichick. Critics level to the very fact the sequence stemmed from writer Jeff Benedict’s guide of the identical title, for which Kraft gave full entry, and the Apple TV+ sequence originated with Kraft’s shut private pal government producer Brian Glazer.
Kraft himself has distanced himself from the sequence, saying he wished it was extra targeted on the staff’s success, and making clear that granting entry and the “Copyright Kraft Dynasty 2024″ that seems on the finish of every episode under no circumstances means the proprietor had any say within the artistic route of the sequence, one thing Hamachek verified in his interview with IndieWire. The Krafts’ spokeperson has gone to date, in response to the Boston Globe, as to elucidate that the Krafts had been doing the documentary as a favor for his or her buddies (Glazer and government producer Ron Howard), not the opposite manner round.
“I clearly can’t communicate to the conversations between two very highly effective and wealthy males as a result of I wasn’t on these calls,” mentioned Hamachek of the Glazer and Kraft hypothesis. “I perceive the questions, I suppose, it simply didn’t actually contain me.”
This isn’t an evasive reply, it’s how Hamachek talks — cautious to not put something on the file that he can’t confirm, he’s not somebody lower out for sports activities discuss radio hypothesis. For instance, when requested if he is aware of why Belichick benched Butler in Tremendous Bowl 52, the filmmaker paused for a number of seconds earlier than answering, “Not with sufficient confidence to place something on the file,” including he had a number of individuals who claimed on digicam they knew why, however he handled it like hypothesis he couldn’t put within the sequence except corroborated by Belichick or Butler.
It’s alongside these traces, that Hamachek sees the Kraft-Glazer background as irrelevant to how he made the sequence. When it got here to the interview, he mentioned his pitch to Kraft was the identical as what he instructed each potential topic: “The beauty of documentaries is that you’ve the chance to form the narrative in a number of methods. So the tales that you just inform will inform me, an individual who doesn’t perceive something in regards to the Patriots [beyond having] learn the articles and books. However I need to hear what it was really like inside these rooms.”
Kraft actually took benefit of this, opening up in surprisingly private and emotional methods on just about each controversial topic, even bringing viewers behind closed door to a gathering at his residence with Brady and then-wife Gisele Bündchen after the 2016 season, the place the heated super-model, in response to Kraft, instructed him Belichick “doesn’t deal with my Tommy like a person.”
But it surely wasn’t simply Kraft that opened up for “The Dynasty” cameras. Lots of Belichick’s gamers, who for years adopted coach’s edict of not speaking to the media, for the primary time instructed tales out of faculty, one thing many now remorse.
“Quite a lot of the gamers had been actually excited to speak,” mentioned Hamachek. “I don’t need to put phrases of their mouths, however as we began to get them within the chair it felt a bit of bit like a company that had stored everyone form of bottled up for a really very long time, this was form of a launch of all of that. Lastly, folks had been going to speak.”
Coming off having simply completed “Tiger” — an HBO docuseries about Tiger Woods, wherein the well-known golfer refused to take part — Hamachek was absolutely braced to inform the Patriots story with out the participation of the franchise’s largest names, however with “The Dynasty” this collective unburdening had a ripple impact each journalist desires of taking place.
“As I began to speak to 1 individual, they let you know a couple of tales, after which once you get to the following individual you inform them, ‘someone that I spoke to talked about this,’ after which they begin to discuss as nicely, and also you accumulate all this information,” mentioned Hamachek. “And by the point you get to the tenth individual, [people] perceive that everyone’s speaking. And that’s half the job, to make everyone perceive that it is a place the place we are able to inform the tales that haven’t been instructed earlier than.”
Probably the most nice shock for Hamachek was how the mega-superstar Brady approached the documentary.
“Initially of the mission, I assumed that [Brady] was going to return in with minders, and hair and make-up, and all of those totally different folks, and he would have a staff round him,” mentioned Hamacheck. “[Instead] he drives himself in his automotive, no person else is with him, and he simply sits down within the chair and says, ‘What do you need to know?’ He got here in prepared to speak, and he was very open and weak in a manner that I don’t assume folks have actually seen him earlier than.”
It took Hamachek over a 12 months to get Belichick in the identical chair. The director had a number of telephone calls with the Patriots coach, as they talked for a number of hours earlier than Belichick agreed to take part.
“[Belichick] requested the identical questions that everyone asks, ‘What’s your angle? How am I going to be portrayed?’” Hamachek recalled. “I instructed him the precise factor that I [told] everyone else, which is, ‘You’re going to be portrayed someplace between the puff piece and the hit piece, and that’s form of the place the reality lies with all of us.’”
Whereas Belichick did discuss on digicam greater than anybody who grew up watching his notorious press conferences may ever think about, it was not stunning there have been matters he refused to the touch. This offered Hamachek and his staff some tough selections within the enhancing room: To what diploma do you clarify to the viewer they’ve heard the whole lot Belichick needed to say on a subject.
“I had achieved so many different interviews that I wished to present [Belichick] the chance to touch upon all these items, and there have been instances the place we’d cling on him, simply cling on the silence of it,” Hamachek defined, “As a result of as we had been placing this factor collectively, somebody mentioned, ‘Properly, is there the rest? Does he say the rest after this? Since you lower proper off of him when he says, ‘I don’t need to discuss that.’ And I wished to guarantee that the viewers understood that there was nothing else there. I didn’t chop out some reply that was nice.”
These moments of the tight-jawed Belichick sitting in silence, juxtaposed to the openness of others, is awkward to look at, and feeds the narrative that Belichick’s unwillingness to bend, which is finally why Brady left New England. The irony of the Belichick-hit-job narrative, is it’s clear Hamachek has a substantial amount of respect for Belichick, and his interpretation of the top of the dynasty, and the final three episodes of his docuseries is totally different than most in New England.
“The factor that I acquired out of it additionally was that these two had been good for one another,” mentioned Hamachek of Belichick and Brady. “Tom, not solely was the freak of nature who lasted for 20 years, he was the subject-your-ego man… particularly after the third Tremendous Bowl after which the 2007 season [in which Brady broke virtually every offensive record], and the truth that even in any case the non-public success, I’m shocked that he didn’t change earlier.”
Whereas Patriots followers bemoan the Tremendous Bowl that Brady received in Tampa Bay after leaving New England, Hamachek finds it outstanding New England acquired one other 13 seasons out of him after 2007. As soon as universally accepted as the best ever, with film star attractiveness and aw shucks character, Hamachek marvels that Brady continued to purchase into Belichick’s “The Patriots Manner,” forgoing the privileges of his famous person standing, and be, as one teammate put it within the doc, “Belichick’s punching-bag.” That Brady solely shifted as soon as he was approaching 40 years outdated, and after mounting the best comeback in Tremendous Bowl historical past in 2017 (down 28-3 towards the Atlanta Falcons), was, in Hamachek’s thoughts, a very long time coming.
“The man who was all the time staff first, by no means did the rest, began to do extra,” mentioned Hamachek. “I perceive the whole lot that Tom did and why he did it. I feel it’s very regular and human, however I additionally assume you could watch this and see Invoice as an individual who caught to the ideas that he had, and by no means actually wavered, whereas a number of the issues round him begin to change.”
All 10 Episodes of “The Dynasty” can be found on Apple TV+.