Behind a ‘Dynasty’
Jeff Benedict’s new book explores Patriots’ ongoing success
Sitting on his Virginia farm on Dec. 29, 2007, watching the New England Patriots close out an unprecedented 16-0 regular season by defeating the New York Giants 38-35, Jeff Benedict had an idea for a new book.
A Waterford native and the author of multiple New York Times bestselling biographies and nonfiction works, Benedict says, “Watching from someplace other than New England, where I’d spent my whole life, I had a slightly different perspective on what the Patriots were doing than before. Not just that perfect season, but what they had been building beyond New England. It made me think, ‘This is historic for sports, but there’s something bigger going on here.’ And I knew at that moment I wanted very badly to write that book.”
Of course, another thing Benedict knows is that wanting to write a book and actually finding the time and publishing opportunity to do so two very different things.
“Obviously, I’ve worked on a lot of projects and written a lot of books since that night, including some about major sports stars,” says Benedict. He has also co-written a biography of Tiger Woods, and he co-wrote former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young’s memoir.
“And all along, the Patriots just continued their march and won more Super Bowls and became a much bigger part of Americana. My interest grew in real time, and all along I was connecting bios and building my own research library. Plus, the time allowed me to refine what I wanted to focus on.”
Two years ago, Benedict finally found the time and secured the book contract to write what became “The Dynasty,” a tirelessly researched and fluently ambitious history of the New England Patriots football team under owner Robert Kraft.
“The Dynasty” will be published Monday by the Avid Reader Books imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Benedict celebrates with the launch of a virtual book tour at 7 p.m. Monday from the writer’s studio in the stone cottage adjacent to New London’s Garde Arts Center. He’ll discuss the work with NBC30 sports anchor Michael Holley, who is also a Boston University journalism professor and author whose own bestselling books include a number of titles about the Patriots. That the launch party is at the Garde isn’t a coincidence; Benedict’s new
“With Brady, Kraft and Belichick, I had three main, large and looming characters — not just one — so there’s that complexity to the storytelling. And by that point, I was dealing with a massive span of time — 25 years — and you have to be really selective on what to leave out so you can focus on what to tell. It required a tremendous amount of concentration. It was very hard, but that forced thinking in the end made for better writing.”
— JEFF BENEDICT, AUTHOR, ON WRITING HIS NEW BOOK, “THE DYNASTY,” ABOUT THE REIGN OF THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
office is in the Garde’s stone cottage.
“I love writing in this place,” Benedict says by phone from the office earlier in the month. “But I will say I’ve never struggled and wrestled as much with the architecture of a book. That I got to work through it all in this space made it even more special.”
Finding a theme
The theme of “The Dynasty,” Benedict says, came from his desire to examine big questions about how the Patriots have managed a sustained dominance: What was at the core? How did it come together? What sustained their run, and what have they done differently from every other sports franchise in the 21st century to become not just athletically dominant but also a cultural force?
To Benedict, the answers came through the intertwining personalities of quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick — each acknowledged by many as GOATs (Greatest of All Time) at their respective jobs. Indeed, Benedict’s work wouldn’t be anywhere near the first to suggest a connection.
But he also focused on a third spoke of a triumvirate that oversaw six Super Bowl championships in nine appearances, 11 straight division championships, and an identity as the greatest — and most controversial — sports franchise of the 21st century.
Just as important, Benedict argues, is Kraft and the delicate and intricate friendships and working relationships between those three men.
“I did my due diligence,” Benedict laughs. “There have been plenty of books over the years about not so much the organization but the team and Brady and Bill. But something occurred to me. Sports Illustrated had generated a list of the best 100 sports books of all time, and what stood out to me was that not one book was about an owner. THAT intrigued me because I wanted a different viewpoint and a different way to tell a story. So it made sense to me to start by approaching the owner. It’s HIS team and organization that had done all this.”
Old-fashioned approach
Benedict began in a fashion that perhaps wouldn’t occur to most folks today: He handwrote a letter to Kraft to introduce himself.
“At that point, I’d never spoken with anyone in the Patriots organization,” Benedict says. “They didn’t know me at all; I’d never covered the team or attended a press conference; I had no connections. And I was pretty certain he had no idea who I was.
“But one day, there was a letter from Bob back to me in the mailbox. We did it the old-fashioned way. That was the beginning of a correspondence and a relationship.”
With that, the doors literally opened a bit, and Benedict was soon able to develop a level of trust and increasing access with a number of sources.
Over the course of the book, he conducted 250-plus interviews with players, coaches, personnel, sportswriters and broadcasters, team doctors, team wives and families, league officials, entertainers, politicians and more.
“With Brady, Kraft and Belichick, I had three main, large and looming characters — not just one — so there’s that complexity to the storytelling,” Benedict says. “And by that point, I was dealing with a massive span of time — 25 years — and you have to be really selective on what to leave out so you can focus on what to tell. It required a tremendous amount of concentration. It was very hard, but that forced thinking in the end made for better writing.”
The humanity
“The Dynasty” starts off with three chapters that introduce the reader to his main characters — Belichick, Brady and Kraft — through respective, real-life and formative incidents that reveal their vulnerability.
“I’m not impressed by celebrity or fame or wealth,” Benedict says. “What I’m drawn to as a writer is trying to find the humanity of who I’m writing about, and that’s more difficult when it’s a celebrity.
“But at the end of the day, they’re still human beings. So that’s what I was after. There’s no one more celebrated and famous in sports over the last 20 years, and I wanted to get beyond that.
“What I discovered and experienced and wrote about was a tremendous amount of humanity not visible to the average fan. The more I learned and wrote, the more excited I got.”
Benedict acknowledges the obvious: That, had Kraft or Belichick or Brady refused to participate in extensive one-on-one interviews, “The Dynasty” wouldn’t have happened. The author is also aware that, as dictated by his approach, one of the big questions from any fan will be, “What are they really like?” To that end, yes, Kraft’s, Belichick’s and Brady’s personalities shine through — as do those of dozens of other significant characters, particularly pre-Brady quarterback Drew Bledsoe and Kraft’s son Jonathan.
“Everyone in this book gave different degrees of access and follow up,” Benedict says. “Tom was quite generous. He’s laser focused and very forthcoming, and there was a genuineness to him that’s rare. What stood out to me was his authenticity; quickly, our meetings became more like conversations than interviews. I asked him about a lot of aspects of his life, and he was great about that.”
In Belichick’s case, Benedict says, “I asked him a lot. Some things he chose to answer; others he didn’t. I spent less time with him than Brady and Kraft, but to be honest, I was appreciative because when he did talk, he was illuminating and thoughtful. As a journalist, I’m aware no one needs to talk to me, and I always feel fortunate when someone says yes — whether it’s a week or five minutes. That applies to everyone in this book.”
Benedict was perhaps most anxious about speaking with Kraft, who organized and built a dominant and winning organization invested in philanthropy and that is at the forefront of some of the most progressive social agendas in the NFL. Much of his part in the story preceded the arrival of Brady and Belichick.
“I portrayed Bob the way I saw him, and I spent a LOT of time observing him,” Benedict says. “It was invaluable to have that luxury because I saw Bob in many different settings and situations, and it says a lot about him that he allowed me to do that and he was always a gentleman.”
A new path
When asked what it was about “The Dynasty” that would make him want to participate in the launch event Monday, Holley — the sports anchor, author and journalism professor — says, “I think the question should be, ‘What is it about the book that made me say “Wow!”?’ I’m so glad Jeff trusted me to read it because there’s stuff in there that’s gonna make news and stuff adding context to what we’ve been talking about all along.
“Throughout this book, Jeff has proven what I always tell my students: Nothing beats good reporting.
“You can’t separate good writing from good reporting. They go hand in hand, and when I was reading this, I realized Jeff has taken stories we thought we knew and found a fresh path that other writers — including the late, great David Halberstam, Brady, and myself when I’ve been fortunate enough to write about the team — didn’t take.
“It’s an amazing piece of work.”
By the time he literally typed “the end,” Benedict felt spent and exhausted but also exhilarated.
“Looking back, I realize that working on this book, I experienced a lot of anxiety — and I’m not one typically given to anxiety. It was extremely stressful,” Benedict says. “A times, it was almost overwhelming, and I wasn’t used to that.”
Benedict pauses, then tells a quick story about the team returning from a loss in Miami. The flight landed in the early morning at the Providence airport, and the players got in their cars and headed home — except for Brady, by that point in his career the premiere star in the game. Brady drove straight to the stadium and stayed up all night watching game film and studying.
Benedict adds, “So, in some ways, though the pressure I felt writing the book was selfmade, it was something I felt every time I stepped into the stadium or the Patriots offices because I felt the magnitude of these three men and an organization that’s synonymous with excellence.
“I had to produce something beyond ‘pretty good’ because the Patriots don’t do ‘pretty good.’”
“What I discovered and experienced and wrote about was a tremendous amount of humanity not visible to the average fan. The more I learned and wrote, the more excited I got.” — AUTHOR JEFF BENEDICT ON HIS NEW BOOK, "THE DYNASTY," ABOUT THE REIGN OF THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS