Jon Wallach’s birds-eye review: THE DYNASTY: New England Patriots (ep. 3 & 4)
As far as specific people go, I was glad to see that Bill Parcells finally showed up, and, while the documentary does allow for a positive side of Bill’s work to bring the franchise back from obscurity, it also quickly has Jonathan Kraft pointing out where things went wrong at the end of the 1996 season. You get the feeling that there’s still a lot of animosity between the two sides. Bill apologized for his behavior in the 30 for 30 with Bill Belichick a few years ago, but, in this instance, he simply said that he felt that some “incompetent” people were put in charge of the draft, he didn’t like that, and there was no apology. I’ve always been a Parcells guy, and very thankful for what he did here, so my view may be slanted, but the obvious way that this ownership has kept him out of the teams Hall of Fame, coupled with what I saw in this episode, made me believe that this has gotten very petty, even though all of this stuff is well over 20 years old.
Another guy who comes off well in this is Drew Bledsoe, who the film shows as a great teammate, even though he HATED what happened to him after his return in 2001.
Episode 4 was mostly about Spygate and the 2007 season, and Bill Belichick’s treatment of it, both then and now. It’s nice to know that Bill is still just as arrogant about it, too. He treats the filmmakers exactly like he treated the media, refusing to talk about the rule breaking in the present tense. “I’ve made my comments on that” he says. Sound familiar? Good on the producers to go back and grab the audio at the time where he admits his wrongdoing immediately after that answer. The filmmakers tried to get answers out of Ernie Adams as well, but he said the info is “going to the grave” with him.
"It's going to the grave with me." - Ernie Adams
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) February 23, 2024
Two New Episodes of #TheDynasty: New England Patriots — Now Streaming pic.twitter.com/eKDBPdYyWQ
Is this an egregious reckless breaking of the rules that gave the Patriots an un-real advantage? No. At the time, every other team could scout the same opponent signals, but nobody else taped it. The rules were indeed broken, and Jackie McMullan had the best line of all – “I think he (Bill) thought that I’m smarter than everyone else. No-one’s even going to even know what I’m doing. That’s a great way to get caught.”
Bill’s anger after he was slapped on the wrist for Spygate was well detailed and then came the football porn of the 2007 season, where he and the team took that anger out on everyone until the Super Bowl. The behind the scenes stuff from this season was worth watching, too. I’m also a big fan of Randy Moss stories, which were also in this episode. Bill actually cracked a smile when talking about calling him up and getting hung up on because Moss didn’t believe it was him. Another great line was Moss comparing his explosiveness to Forrest Gump running out of his knee braces and running away from the car chasing him. Watching back some of these highlights, you forget how good he was in that season.
We’re 4 episodes in out of 10, and, because I haven’t seen all of them, like some in the “inner circle” of the media, I’m still very much looking forward to the next one. Yes, it’s not exactly new ground, and, yes, the book it’s based on is very much ownership slanted, but it’s a great trip through the past. The past has gotten lost a bit in the last 4 years of this franchise.
Jon Wallach is part of Toucher & Hardy and contributor for 985thesportshub.com. Follow Wallach at @KenGriffeyrules on Twitter.
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