To say I’m a huge New England Patriots fan would be an understatement. I’ve followed this team ever since I was a little kid. I watched all the games every Sunday on the local NBC Affiliate in New England.  Back then the Patriots weren’t very good. In fact, most of the years I watched them growing up they weren’t very good. It wasn’t until Robert Craft bought the team and brought in Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick that the Patriots became good. As a fan, I just started seeing things change in the coaching and management side of things. The docuseries The Dynasty: The New England  Patriots depicts the team from around 2001 to the end of the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick era. 

The first two episodes of the series mainly focus on the drafting of the young Tom Brady at pick 199 from Michigan, the injury to at that time starting quarterback Drew Bredsoe and Tom taking over as the starter, and how the New England Patriots players and fans have rallied around this Coach, his decision to keep Brady as the starter, and this young whipper snapper. doing what he had to do to stay as the starter defying the odds and eventually winning the franchise’s first Super Bowl. Along with a winter wonderland game dubbed the tuck game in-between for good measure. This was a magical season, to say the least for me as a longtime Patriots fan.

There were all kinds of things that happened in these twenty years in the history of this old football franchise. The filmmakers used quite a few of the tricks that documentarians have used over the years. The first being talking heads. Plenty of Patriots players, coaches, and even fans were interviewed for this series. The second is the use of all the NFL Archival footage. This series benefits from all of this great footage especially since I loved revisiting the tuck rule game with all the snow and so forth. That was quite a memory for me. I knew some Raiders fans personally and they were not happy campers after the tuck rule and game.

As any New England Patriots fan knows the rest is history but it wasn’t without its drama. The leg of Adam Vinatieri would come into play more times than we would like to admit and an injury to Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game versus the Pittsburgh Steelers would cause a little trepidation on the result of the 2001-2002 season. Facing an opponent who put a beat down on the Pats earlier in the season was still a worrisome moment for me and I’m sure other Patriots fans. The series sometimes even focused on the past and specific members of the organization such as the owner, head coach, starting quarterback, or other members.

One thing I liked about the series which added a nice element to it was all of the ESPN footage and various talk show recordings. This was like a yin and yang aspect of the documentary. Having a counterpoint to the positive stuff the series shows means it’s a very good journalistic choice. It is better to show both sides of a story instead of one side. This series is better for that. And as a whole shows the good and bad things that went on in those earlier years. Like football, all stories have multiple phases.

A side note to the early years of the Patriots Dynasty was the fact that it started in 2001. In the shadow of 9/11. The Patriot’s colors were red, white, and blue and they were for better or worse America’s team at this point. The country needed an underdog to win and the Patriots represented the country. We were attacked by Al-Qaeda and terrorists and this was a way for America to show our colors. We were all New England Patriots fans that year. Except if you were Raiders, Steelers, or Rams fans maybe. Robert Kraft’s words rang pretty true though “We were all Patriots”.

The series deals with stories involving Randy Moss, a potential perfrct season, Rob Gronkowski, key injuries, and so many other angles. I could write about every little aspect of the Dynasty but this review would go on forever. There is an inside look that you rarely see from teams. The cameras were allowed an unprecedented access to things you normally don’t see regarding the locker room and what goes on behind closed doors. It is an amazing thing to see. Me as a huge fan get to watch all of this inside access was a treat even though it was a bit bittersweet at times.

The Dynasty:The New England Patriots is a docu-series that went into great depth on a team, its players, coaches, owners, and fans. The producers and directors went into great detail on all the good things that happened to this team and those who were involved with it and the bad times as well. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the New England Patriots. Spyware, deflategate, and various other blemishes on the New England Patriots cropped up that proved maybe the Pats weren’t as great of a franchise as we all had hoped they would be. I hoped otherwise.

All episodes of The Dynasty: The New England Patriots  are streaming weekly on Apple TV+

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen