The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘It makes it so irresistibly real’
State author’s book on the New England Patriots becomes new streaming series ‘The Dynasty’ on Apple TV+
When first sitting down with Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady, author Jeff Benedict’s nerves were at an all time high.
“I had a real (expletive) day,” Brady told Benedict.
To break the tension during the first of many interviews with the quarterback, who was having a rough day, Benedict slid an envelope over to the quarterback.
Brady opened the envelope to find a surprise — a birthday card. The quarterback’s mood snapped and he broke a smile.
The interview, which was a year in the making, was for Benedict’s book “The Dynasty,” which chronicles the New England Patriots during the past two decades — a legacy that was highlighted by six Super Bowl wins and nine Super Bowl appearances. The book, which was released in 2020, was recently adapted into a ten-part docuseries for Apple TV+.
The docuseries touches upon many different aspects of the Patriots saga including highlights from the team’s six Super Bowl wins as well as darker parts of the team’s legacy such as Deflategate, when the team was accused of deflating game balls during the 2015 AFC Championship Game; Spygate, when the team was accused of stealing play signals from opposing coaches during the 2007 season and the first-degree murder conviction and subsequent death of star tight end Aaron Hernandez.
To promote the series and book, Benedict, a New York Times bestselling author, New London native and Eastern Connecticut State University alumnus, participated in a Q&A session and screening with students and guests at the campus
on Tuesday night.
The process of writing the book began shortly after Benedict finished writing “Tiger Woods,” a biography on the celebrated golfer which was later turned into an HBO documentary. Benedict said he went to his publisher to discuss the option of writing a book on the Patriots in February 2018, but due to the arduous task at hand, was given time to make connections with the franchise while working on a book detailing the career of basketball star LeBron James.
“Tiger, LeBron and Tom Brady are the three greatest athletes to come out of America in the 21st century. I don’t think there’s any dispute about that,” Benedict told Hearst Connecticut.
Six months into writing his book on James, Benedict received a letter from Patriots
owner Robert Kraft inviting him to Gillette Stadium to talk about his book. From there, Benedict made connections with Kraft and the Patriots organization, and was given unparalleled access into the day-to-day operations of the team. James was put to the side as Benedict’s attention shifted to the Patriots.
Benedict said he approached the book with the perspective of “writing visually,” as he already had in mind that his source material could end up as a documentary just like his previous novel. By the time he finished writing the book, Benedict said he was already working on shopping his pitch around for a docuseries on the Patriots.
The series was picked up by Apple and immediately, crews went to work putting it together.
According to Benedict, he watched approximately 25 to 30
hours of film provided to him by the Patriots while writing the book. For the series, the organization opened its film archives, which totaled roughly 35,000 hours — spanning everything from practices and press conferences to home videos and locker room footage. The Patriots were ahead of the curve in terms of filming its own content in-house for the past 20 years, which lead to a wealth of content, according to Benedict. Fifty people were hired for the documentary to just to comb through the team’s video archives.
“You’re seeing these guys unvarnished and unedited,” Benedict said. “It’s raw. It makes it so irresistibly real.”
Benedict, who serves as the executive producer on the docuseries, said the film crew had the same access to personnel as he did for the book. The series features interviews with former players (Rob Gronkowski, Tedy Bruschi), famous fans (Bill Burr, Jon Bon Jovi) and the “nucleus of the dynasty” — Kraft, Brady and former head coach Bill Belichick, who Benedict affectionately referred to as a “grumpy lobster boat captain” during the Q&A segment.
To Benedict, that “nucleus” was key to the domination of the franchise for two decades, with neither member being more responsible than the other for the team’s success, despite the opinions of fans and writers.
“Neither of them would’ve achieved the six Super Bowl titles without each other,” Benedict said. “It’ll remain to be seen if any team can replicate what they did because right now, there is no team you can point to, certainly in football history, that dominated for that long.”
The process of writing the book and filming the docuseries took a total of five years with production of the series taking place over two years. Being that Benedict was involved with “The Dynasty” for that long, it became a passion project for him to stay on and see it through to the end.
“I wanted to be involved in every bit of it because I had invested more than usual in the book, and I didn’t just want to sell it to somebody,” Benedict added.
Benedict compared the scope of “The Dynasty” to “The Last Dance,” the Emmy Award-winning miniseries chronicling Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls. However, Benedict believes his project has the upper hand.
“Think about how different ‘The Last Dance’ would have been if you had cameras following Jordan around for his whole career in Chicago,” Benedict said. “That’s what we have with Brady and the Patriots.”