Patriot Games
‘The Dynasty’ director Matthew Hamachek reveals the secret to the Super Bowl champs’ success
NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That’s an apt summation of the New England Patriots during their championship run in the first two decades of this century. There were six Super Bowl wins, but everyone — particularly quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick — seemed to be on an endless deployment aboard the HMS Misery. Eventually, Brady jumped ship for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“Me and Coach Belichick, we did what we loved and competed for 20 years together,” says Brady in an upcoming episode of Apple TV+’S “The Dynasty.” “Based on how things had gone, I wasn’t going to sign up for more of it.”
Did it have to be that way? Must life be grim to succeed? Variety talked with Matthew Hamachek, director and executive producer of “The Dynasty,” about the Patriot Way. You have all these great interviews with Tom Brady, owner Bob Kraft and other players and coaches. But Bill Belichick looks like he’s at a deposition. His answers are brusque. How did you deal with that?
I talked with [Belichick confidant] Ernie Adams for 15 hours. After we talked about [convicted murderer and former Patriot] Aaron Hernandez, he said, “That was a tough one, but if you hadn’t asked me, you wouldn’t be doing your job.” I asked Bill the same exact questions. The reason my voice is in his interviews is because he didn’t elaborate. There’s nothing on the cutting room
floor. Sometimes, non-answers speak volumes. Speaking of Hernandez, there’s a chilling moment of footage where he is at a rookie counseling camp and he tells ex-nfler Cris Carter about how he wanted to get his life on track. How did you find that? The Patriots had an in-house videography team that filmed that. They were one of the first teams to do a lot of filming particularly as the team won Super Bowls and they wanted a history of it. This was a continuous listening and watching process for our team. New material would constantly change the direction we were going in. There are episodes devoted to Spygate [Belichick was fined $500,000 for spying on the New York Jets] and Deflategate [Brady was suspended for four games for allegedly deflating footballs to get a better grip]. But there’s no mention of Robert Kraft being cited for solicitation in a Florida massage parlor. [The charge was dropped after a judge ruled that surveillance video had been illegally obtained.] Why? I didn’t cover in any way Tom and Gisele [Bündchen] meeting. I didn’t cover Kraft and his wife’s relationship. I didn’t cover Bill’s divorce. I didn’t cover Bill’s extramarital affairs. And I didn’t cover what happened with Robert Kraft, because I don’t think that those things had to do with my central question: what it takes to obtain greatness.
So what was the secret? Patriots player Tedy Bruschi said, “I’m the towel, and Belichick is the hands that are wringing me out.” But it’s not just about getting talent out of them. It’s about creating a culture. You realize that there is no star on this team. Everybody’s equal, and we all have one goal, and that’s all it is. And I think that the creation of that culture is a large part of Bill’s talent. It’s all about “What does it take, and are you willing to do it in order to accomplish greatness?” Some Patriot fans see “The Dynasty” as overly critical of Belichick. Everybody is interested in the “why did it fall apart” part. But the infinitely more fascinating thing is how did this thing stay together so long? Belichick is on the cover of Time magazine, and Brady’s an international superstar. It could have fallen apart a hundred ways. I think it all gets back to the culture that these people created. And that starts with Belichick.
And then he was fired. I always thought they’d figure out how to keep him there. It was shocking.
‘This was a continuous listening and watching process for our team. New material would constantly change the direction we were going in.’ — Matthew Hamachek, ‘Dynasty’ director