The NFL’s Greatest Dynasty: New England Patriots
Between 2001-19, head coach Bill Belichick created one of the most successful dynasties ever seen in American football. Under his leadership, the New England Patriots won a record equalling six Super Bowl titles. Guided by quarterback Tom Brady, the team also set a host of other NFL records, including most wins over a ten year period, longest regular season/play-off winning streak, and most consecutive divisional titles.
But this era of nearly unprecedented success did not come without a cost, and the franchise was rocked by a number of controversies. Chief among them were the Spygate and Deflategate scandals. Through it all, however, the team kept winning. Could no-one stop the Patriots? As it happened, only the Patriots themselves could, and that is exactly what happened.
In The Dynasty: New England Patriots, a ten-part docu-series now showing on Apple TV+, director Matthew Hamachek explores the rise and fall of the Belichick-Brady Patriot dynasty. How did it achieve greatness? This question is at the heart of the docu-series and opens Matt’s discussion with Matthew Sherwood. They discuss are what it was like interviewing Brady and the famously reserved Belichick, particularly when it came to asking them questions they would rather not answer. Other topics include the comparison to be drawn between the Patriots and Oscar winner Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, and how you make a compelling documentary about a team whose success made them incredibly unpopular.
The Dynasty: New England Patriots is the fruit of 35,000 hours of archive footage and over 70 interviews with Patriot players and coaches from Bill Belichick and Tom Brady onwards. In this podcast, discover the ruthlessness, maniacal nature, and utter determination to succeed that made and maybe marred the New England Patriots’ dynasty.
“... everything about this story surprised me... you hear about the cheating scandals... you get the caricature of what these people are supposed to be, and then as you dig deeper and deeper and deeper, you realise that behind all the headlines, there's just so much more, and these people are so complex and nuanced.” – Matt Hamachek
Time Stamps
00:00 – Trailer for The Dynasty: New England Patriots
01:12 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guest, Matt Hamachek, and his docu-series, The Dynasty: New England Patriots
03:21 – Matt explains what The Dynasty is about
05:19 – The wealth of video footage that Matt was able to use
09:57 – What surprised Matt most in making The Dynasty
12:12 – Discussing the Patriots’ decline
20:07 – The Patriots: In decline but still successful
22:24 – Exploring the question of how a team achieves greatness
26:05 – How Matt became involved with The Dynasty
27:04 – The challenge of making a doc about a well hated team
31:47 – Framed: America, the Patriots and the early 21 st Century
35:25 – Matt on interviewing Bill Belichick and Tom Brady
44:16 – Similarities between Tom Brady and Tiger Woods
51:25 – Matt on how it feels to have finally finished The Dynasty
53:01 – Discussing Dan Koehler, Matt’s closest collaborator 56:13 – Matt discusses some of the other people he has worked with
Resources:
The Dynasty: New England Patriots
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Matthew Hamachek
More from Factual America:
MMA’s Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez
From the Tennis Court to New York
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 157: The NFL’s Greatest Dynasty: New England Patriots
Matthew Sherwood 00:00 (01:12)
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. The Dynasty: New England Patriots goes inside the NFL franchise's 20 year journey from the unique chemistry that fuelled six Super Bowl wins to the internal strife that sparked a turf war. Through never before seen footage and intimate interviews with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, former players, and those who worked behind-the-scenes, director Matt Hamachek seeks to answer the question: what is the key to greatness? Listen as we learn the answer, as well as discuss the many highs as well as lows that are encountered on the road to success on and off the field. Stay tuned.
Matthew Sherwood 00:51
Matt Hamachek, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?
Matt Hamachek 00:56
Well, they're great. Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Matthew Sherwood 00:59
Yeah, thanks for coming on. And to remind our listeners and viewers, we are talking about The Dynasty: New England Patriots. Episodes One through Eight have released over the past month, basically since mid-February. And Episodes Nine and Ten are releasing on March 15. I think this - on Apple TV Plus, I should add, and we will probably be releasing this podcast about that time or a little bit afterwards. So, if you haven't had a chance to check out all ten episodes, please do. So, Matt, great to have you on - finally to get you on; I know we had some scheduling issues, certainly on our end, but it's a joy to have you on to the podcast. Now, this is one of those - Dynasty: New England Patriots - but we always start the show with asking the guest, usually it's a director, what is The Dynasty: New England Patriots all about? Now, you could say, Well, how long do you have, but maybe give us a - give us a synopsis, and then we'll dive in from there.
Matt Hamachek 02:01 (03:21)
I think that obviously, you know, on its face, it's a documentary about a football team that had immense success in the NFL in America. I think the series that I and my team wanted to make was focused on a singular question that I sort of came to when I was interviewing one of the main characters in it, this guy named Ernie Adams, who's had a title 'The Director of Football Research', and...
Matthew Sherwood 02:15
I love that guy.
Matt Hamachek 02:31
... he's great. And I'm interviewing him for the first time - I think it was an audio only interview, was a getting-to-know-you interview, in a way, and obviously because Ernie is a character who had never been really on camera before; he'd been, you know, in - within New England and within football, the football world in America, he's a somewhat mysterious figure that nobody ever really got to see or talk to before. So, I wanted to see, you know, how does this guy talk? Can he tell a story? And he could. Immediately, I could tell that. But then he said to me, he said every team in the NFL starts the season and says that they want to go to the Super Bowl, but not every team is willing to do what it takes to get there. And so, that question of what does it take to get there? What does it take to accomplish greatness? was the question that I was answering. But I think that I didn't have any interest in doing it in an academic way, in the sense that I didn't want to take this 30,000 foot view of, okay looking back on this now, you know, why do you guys think that you got to the greatness that you did, or what was the secret sauce. I didn't really approach it that way. What I tried to do is make it as if you were in the room or on the field with these people while they were going through all these events and to focus on a story that was much more about human beings and how they interacted with each other than about football.
Matthew Sherwood 03:12 (05:19)
And so, mindful of that, you're able to do that because you have access to some never before seen footage is what - I mean the usual, 'never before seen' stuff. But, I mean, what was going on. The Krafts, and the family, they were always - were they always filming behind-the-scenes because you - it seems to be from the very beginning.
Matt Hamachek 04:19
Yeah, the Krafts obviously themselves were not filming... I'm joking. They had - the team had a production company that basically as, especially as they started to win Super Bowls, it became evident to them that there was some form of history going on here, and it was worth documenting, and I think in an interesting way they were pioneers when it came to just filming constantly. And so, we ended up having access to 35,000 hours of footage. And to give you a visualisation for that it's, you know, these 16 Wheeler Mack Trucks, if you took all of the tapes, you'd have to fill up two of those in order to sort of get through the amount of tapes that we looked through just from them. Plus the stuff from NFL films and just your other sources, all the sports shows and things like that. So, just the process of going through all of that was, you know, six, seven months. Sometimes, people were triple speeding through the things that they knew that there was nothing there, and then every once in a while, you get these gems of, okay, you know - the thing that your - the listeners have to understand, if they're not fans of the NFL, is that the Patriots, if they have been anything from the outside looking in as a team that keeps everybody at arm's length, right. They were very secretive, they were very, you really didn't get a lot of emotion or insight or anything into what was going on behind those walls. One of our - one of the journalists that we interviewed, along with the 70 plus players and coaches, execs that we had access to, basically, he sort of described it as they never invited you into the party because there was no party. And so, this footage, along with being able to talk to all these people for the first time, it felt like we were getting to sort of peer behind the walls for the first time ever of this organisation that obviously had an incredible amount of success, but also scandal and heartbreak, and obviously, you know, this whole thing came crumbling down at the end.
Matthew Sherwood 06:34
Right. Yeah, and the timing is actually quite impeccable, too, with the head coach, Bill Belichick, now leaving the organisation, obviously, a few years after Tom Brady has. I think, I mean, that's an interesting point. Because besides this footage that you - these two Mack Trucks worth of footage that you and all your associates had to go through - you've got, you know, I mean, a lot of these guys don't give the impression that they weren't, you know, there was no party. I mean, you've got a pretty animated bunch of people outside of the main characters, obviously.
Matt Hamachek 07:12
No, I think that's right, though, I think, you know, that was the perception from the outside looking in. And not only are these some of the best storytellers that I've ever encountered in documentary film, but also, they're lively. And then as we got to look into this archive, some of the times when you would expect them to be the most down and, you know, like, when they were accused of filming their opponents' sidelines...
Matthew Sherwood 07:38
Right.
Matt Hamachek 07:38
... in 2007, I think that that put their backs up against the wall, and they had - and that locker room was having more fun that season, and I sort of described it at times, almost like you're on the Death Star with the evil empire, but, you know, it's a party and they're having a blast as they're going from planet-to-planet destroying everybody in their path.
Matthew Sherwood 07:57
Right.
Matt Hamachek 07:57
So, you know, I, you know, that's the great thing about making documentaries that sometimes, especially with a subject matter that people believe they have consumed, you know, to a great degree, you get to sort of play with what people expect the story to be and turn it on its head, and I think finding footage that makes people more three dimensional, and shows you a different side of them is always obviously the, you know, part of what makes being a filmmaker so much fun.
Matthew Sherwood 08:32 (09:57)
I mean - well, indeed; so, with that, following on from that, what - knowing what you know now, I mean, what has surprised you most? Or what did you not know going in, that you do know now?
Matt Hamachek 08:44
I think that - the thing you have to understand is, I didn't grow up a fan of this team. And so...
Matthew Sherwood 08:51
Were you a fan of the NFL, at least?
Matt Hamachek 08:53
I was definitely a fan of the NFL. My team is the Green Bay Packers...
Matthew Sherwood 08:57
But you've beaten the Patriots; that was in a Super Bowl.
Matt Hamachek 09:00
That's true. That was a very, very long time ago. So, the truth is, I think everything about this story surprised me because I had heard; you know, like casual fans, you hear about the cheating scandals, you hear about - you sort of get the caricature of what these people are supposed to be, and then as you dig deeper and deeper and deeper, you realise that behind all the headlines, there's just so much more, and these people are so complex and nuanced. And then I think the other thing that really surprised me was how this thing came to an end. Because it's this incredible story, really, of a group of people doing the thing that most of the time never happens, which is they put aside their egos, they do what's best for this larger goal. And they create this very selfless machine basically and they win three Super Bowls in four years and then they sustain it through multiple cheating scandals. They win three more Super Bowls, and then all of these principles that were sort of a foundation for this perfect machine start to, you know, fall apart, and ego and, you know, just being selfish in various ways, or going against what the sort of stated rules were of being a Patriot, and all these things, all start to make their way into the building and this thing starts to fall apart at the end.
Matthew Sherwood 10:29
And so, that takes us, right, very conveniently, this is really what the last two episodes are about, which are going to be released in a couple of days. And...
Matt Hamachek 10:37
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 10:37 (12:12)
... we can talk about all that other stuff and Deflategate and everything. But I know you've - and I have no problem saying - telling people that, I know you've been interviewed quite a bit on shows that have got bigger audiences than we do, I'm sure, and talking about a lot of these things in detail, but since these are releasing now, Episodes Nine and Ten, I mean, that decline and fall of the dynasty - I mean, that was - again, we all hear the rumours. I mean, I live here in the UK, but there's a lot of NFL fans here, and I follow US sports - but the thing that struck me was this - how dire the 20 - was it the 2017 season...
Matt Hamachek 11:15
2017 season was, yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 11:17
... was just absolutely hor - everyone says, that you interview, was saying it's, like, the worst season they ever - in that period.
Matt Hamachek 11:24
Yeah. So, I think what had happened - I think to go back and understand how things got to this way, and again, this is all sort of through the lens of this very human drama that involves things that we've all experienced at different times in our lives, it's - to me, it really starts in the 2008 season.
Matthew Sherwood 11:45
Right.
Matt Hamachek 11:45
Tom Brady has just gotten - the whole team has gotten over one of the worst losses that you could possibly imagine; they had gone undefeated up until the winter, they get to the Super Bowl, they lose in spectacular fashion to the Giants, and then, basically one of the first few plays of the next season, Tom Brady goes down with a knee injury, and he is forced to leave the team and sort of rehab his injury elsewhere in California for the entire season. And he is sort of faced for the first time in his career with his football mortality, the fact that this will come to an end at some point in time, and if it had been maybe a little bit worse, maybe it would have happened sooner than - it would have happened that year. And who knows what it's going to be like when he comes back because this is an injury that has ended careers, or made players much worse than they were before. So, while he's confronting that, his head coach Bill Belichick is proving to the world that he can do anything and without somebody like Tom Brady. He's going 11 And 5, which is a great record, and he's doing it with a back-up quarterback that hasn't started a game since the seventh grade.
Matthew Sherwood 12:57
How do they not make the playoffs at 11 and 5? I didn't have a chance to look at all the records of the other teams...
Matt Hamachek 13:02
Tiebreakers within the division, basically.
Matthew Sherwood 13:04
Right, right; yeah.
Matt Hamachek 13:04
The Jets, I think, had the tiebreaker that year. But that starts the tension, right. Tom Brady is out there saying, I'm gonna play until I'm 45 years old, because he starts to say things like, How do I not break? How do I not find myself on the operating room table again...
Matthew Sherwood 13:17
Right, right.
Matt Hamachek 13:18
... and Belichick, rightfully so, is saying I've got all this data that says that when quarterbacks get to the end of their 30s, they basically start to fall off a cliff, and that isn't that far away for somebody like Tom Brady. And so, that starts out the initial tension. And then, I think what I would say is to fast forward to what we cover in Episode Eight, which is essentially, you know, the drafting of Tom's replacement. Basically, Bill is sort of saying - there's a famous press conference where he says, We all know Tom's age and contract situation. And that's a pretty clear indication of where his mindset is, because the question to him is, Have you drafted his back-up just to have a back-up in place? Or you drafting his successor? And when he says, Well, we all know what Tom's age and contract situation is, that sort of indicates where his mindset is, and then we go back in time, and that's one of the devices that we use from a storytelling perspective is, we wanted to have an A-story that sort of started right when Tom comes in, and ends pretty much right when Tom leaves, but to use flashbacks to sort of elucidate what's happening in the A-story. And we go back in time at this point to Tom's time at Michigan where he comes in. He's the seventh string quarterback, which is one of those situations where it's like, is this guy ever going to play, right?
Matthew Sherwood 14:36
Yeah.
Matt Hamachek 14:37
And over the course - that's from freshman year to his fifth year, senior year, he eventually makes it into be the starting quarterback but the coach has also brought in this young hotshot Drew Henson who Tom admits has a better arm, is faster, and more elusive, and all of these things; and so, Tom will start the games and then all of a sudden Drew Henson will be put in, and it's an interesting thing because, you know, Tom would be - have a lead and then oftentimes Drew would come in and the lead would be dwindled, and then Tom would have to be put in to sort of rectify the situation. So, he leaves college, and then finally he gets to the NFL, and he's the 199th pick. So, for Tom, and for your viewers that don't know, the 199th pick is one of the last people to get chosen. And so, I think that in Tom's mind, in his family's mind, and the players who were friends with Tom mind, they all sort of see Tom as the guy who has never been picked, the guy who was never chosen, who's never been given his due no matter what his accomplishments are. And just when he starts to obtain that, his coach is ready to start moving on from him. And that sets up basically a Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons, and Tom goes down 28 to 3 and he throws a Pick 6, which is, you know, he throws the ball, it's intercepted by the defence and returned for a touchdown. He says, If we lose this game, I know what everybody's gonna say, which is that I'm washed up, right, and the Boston Globe at the time is covering that Super Bowl, and they have to run a very early edition of the paper that goes to the snowbirds down in Florida who once lived in New England, and it says 'A Bitter End'. And then Tom gets up and launches the greatest comeback in sort of NFL history, if not sports history. And I think everybody we talk - a lot of people we talked to said that that was sort of a turning point in his identity and how he saw himself, and it was this guy who had always been willing to be a punching bag, had always, you know, Belichick would come in and say these things in these team meetings about him and say, I can get the kid from, you know, Foxborough High School to throw a better ball than this. And Tom was a willing participant, because I think he knew that the culture that it created by doing that was one where you could be a 20 year old rookie who comes in, you have this great signing bonus, you think you're hot stuff, but the coach is yelling at this guy who's won multiple Super Bowls, and so, it sets the culture, right; everybody - nobody's above the team. And - but, you know, and he kept subjugating his ego over and over and over again. But then finally, at what point do you just say, Okay, you know, I've won more Super Bowls than anybody else has, I may actually be the greatest of all time. And I don't think that necessarily Tom ever had that exact thought, but I do think that from the people we talked to, he really, he changed, and, you know, as one person puts it, wasn't as worried about what Belichick his coach thought of him anymore, and was gonna start doing a little bit more of his own thing.
Matthew Sherwood 17:37
Right.
Matt Hamachek 17:38
And I think that that sets us on this path, you know, towards a team-wide disillusionment, and when that really sort of hap - the tension between the two of them for that 2017 year, which is what we started talking about here, you know, they felt - one player describes it almost as like two parents arguing all the time. And instead, there was all this tension.
Matthew Sherwood 18:02
Right.
Matt Hamachek 18:03
And I think the key to that year was, it was that, there was other things going on within the team. And then they lost, and I think in sports for a team that is as driven as the Patriots are, that is willing to sacrifice as much as they're willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team, there is a winning-cures-everything element to all the tension that had been building up over the years. When they won it didn't matter. But then when they lost, finally, one of the players, you know, he said he felt like he had been cheated by the team, by the coach, for not getting an explanation for a decision he had made. And I think that was sort of really the beginning of the end of this whole thing.
Matthew Sherwood 18:47 (20:07)
But it's still - I mean, there's so many things remarkable about all this story because, you know, a lot of teams go through that and they don't even make the play-offs, right. And they - and these guys are still making the Super Bowl and they have this tension, and they still win another Super Bowl. At least one; I'm losing track but...
Matt Hamachek 19:05
You're right.
Matthew Sherwood 19:07
After that season, they still win another one. So, you know, it's - you know, it is absolutely amazing, and what is - I mean it's almost it's - at times and it's not even - this is not poking, pointing at Belichick or anything because I think they all buy into it - it's a very - it's a very ruthless or was a very ruthless organisation, wasn't it. I mean, you know, guys come and go. It's not like, you know - you have a core group, certainly. And yeah, I guess he had two core groups. The first, you know, the first set of Super Bowls, and the second set of Super Bowls they won. But guys are going, and guys didn't even come back.
Matt Hamachek 19:42
Right.
Matthew Sherwood 19:42
You know, it's...
Matt Hamachek 19:44
But I think that's part of the ruthlessness, as you put it, which I think is fair, is the reason that they won so much, right. And Belichick's ruthlessness and his willingness to move on from players one year early rather than one year late to be one of the first coaches that really understood the value of the cap, meaning the salary cap, and how much money a team can spend, things like that. But it created this environment where it was win at - it was a win at all cost kind of, we're all going to collectively push ourselves harder than we'd ever been pushed, because there's this thing out there that we want to accomplish. And I think what happened is everybody bought in, and everybody went through it. And I think that yes, you're right, there's a lot of teams that say, it's sort of like what Ernie Adams says, there's a lot of teams that say they want to do it, and then they fizzle out, either they don't even make it to the play-offs, or they do and they lose out in the first round. But this team always gave everything. And I think once they finally, you know, had all this new tension that entered into the situation, and then they got to the Super Bowl, and they didn't win, I think that was sort of the, you know...
Matthew Sherwood 20:56
... the beginning of the end, or...
Matt Hamachek 20:58
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 20:58
... or the next beginning of the end, you've already had a beginning of the end.
Matt Hamachek 21:01
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 21:04 (22:24)
And well, that's - I mean, and so is - so, you asked a question that - you had a question you wanted to answer - is that one of the - I imagine you have multiple answers to the question that you asked about how - I'm not going to put exactly the way you put it, but how do you...
Matt Hamachek 21:20
How do you achieve greatness; how do you get there.
Matthew Sherwood 21:22
... is ruth - and don't use my word, necessarily, but ruthlessness is that one way to greatness.
Matt Hamachek 21:30
I think it's an important part of it. I think you have to be relentless and maniacal about your approach to greatness, right. And I think, look, I remember when I was interviewing Michael Strahan, who was one of their opponents that they played against, and he said something to me; he said, You know - we were talking about the - Christopher Nolan has made these movies, the Batman movies...
Matthew Sherwood 21:54
Right.
Matt Hamachek 21:55
... and he had talked about this line from it, which is 'you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain'. And I think what he's referencing football-wise, is that, yeah, there's a lot of teams out there that die, die the hero all the time, but the thing that made the Patriots great was they kept at it, and it was maniacal. It was - there was something about the way that they went about it that was brutal and cold. But that's not to say that the people that were inside the organisation were that way all the time. They had fun as they were doing it, but there was a level of intensity to it, and a desire to dominate, you know, unlike many other - I can't think of a recent team in a professional sport, at least in the states that I can think of, that had that mentality for that long of a period of time. And I just think if you hadn't had Belichick, and you hadn't had Brady, it never would have happened. It took total buy-in from both of them, and their partnership and willingness to sort of get people to drink the Kool-Aid and buy into this thing, and is sort of what made it all happen. And I think, you know, on one hand, you can say, well, that sounds pretty miserable, but I think what they would tell you is kind of - there's a famous quote from - there is a famous quote from another head coach that said, 'we play to win the game'. And I think that the Patriots saw it that way. That's the point of all of this. What's the point of showing up? If you're not going to do everything to win it.
Matthew Sherwood 23:36
Okay. Let's hold it right there. I think we're gonna give our audience a quick break. So, we'll be right back with Matt Hamachek the director of The Dynasty: New England Patriots. Episodes One to Ten, by the time you see this podcast, are available on Apple TV Plus.
Factual America Midroll 23:53
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or X to keep up-to-date with new releases for upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew Sherwood 24:11
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Matt Hamachek, the director of the Apple Original docu-series, The Dynasty: New England Patriots. Episodes One to Ten available now on Apple TV Plus if you're watching this after March 15. I think that you will be, or listening to this, I don't think we're going to release before then. So, we were talking - we've obviously been talking about the film, and this question you posed, and you've been trying to answer, or were trying to answer, as you were creating the film. I mean, how did you become involved with this project?
Matt Hamachek 24:46 (26:05)
Basically, when I was working on my last project, which was Tiger, it was about the golfer Tiger Woods, the person who wrote that book that inspired that documentary series, was writing this one. He asked me to come on. And I said, I said, Sure. You know, not really knowing in the process of figuring out what that question is that you're trying to chase, and what a film was going to be about, is one that's constantly sort of evolving over time. And, you know, because I wasn't a fan, as I got to, you know, talk to these people, it was really about just listening and saying, Okay, for the first time, all these people that were actually there in the rooms when this great success happened, but also when all the other thing, the other sort of side of this story happened, they're all together, they're talking. So, let me just ask questions, and to a degree, get out of the way, and let them tell the story as much as anything else.
Matthew Sherwood 25:44 (27:04)
Okay. And so, how do you go about making a compelling doc about a team that everyone hates? I mean, let's - I mean, for those who are not that familiar, I mean, I think it's back like you said, it's back to that Strahan quote from Batman, you die a hero or you live long enough and you become the villain. And so, certainly, there's this - it's not just the Patriots, too, it also corresponded with the, you know, the - I used to live in Boston, by the way, so, I know - and so, at the same time, you had the Red Sox enjoying success, the Celtics even pull, you know, win one championship in that timeframe. So, the Boston sports fan was getting a bad reputation nationally, I think it's fair to say...
Matt Hamachek 26:28
... for winning a little too much.
Matthew Sherwood 26:29
... for winning too much for their own good, after all those years of suffering, what except for the Celtics and the Bruins. So - I mean, or does it make it easier to make that film? I mean...
Matt Hamachek 26:41
I don't think it's easier or harder. I think that, first off, I didn't hate the Patriots, but I certainly knew as a fan of another team who, you know, has had a decent amount of success, but not enough to anything remotely as close to the Patriots, I knew that the only kind of film that I would want to watch is one that was sort of unvarnished telling of the story, right, and so, nobody needed to see more highlights of the Patriots sort of hoisting the Lombardi trophy over their head. And that has been done so well by the in-house production team at the Patriots, by, you know, NFL films, etc, etc. And so, I think that, you know, when you ask yourself a question, like, how do you obtain greatness, you have to have sort of, you know, just sort of, you know, again, what I kind of say, Okay, what is this really. This is not just the, and then there were some great plays drawn up; and in a way, honestly, like, none of the things that I've ever worked on as either as a director, as a producer, writer and editor have ever been that way. And so, whatever, even when I worked on Amanda Knox for Netflix...
Matthew Sherwood 27:57
Right. Great doc.
Matt Hamachek 28:00
... Thank you. I think that we were trying to, yes, of course, the sort of, the thing that was going to drive the plot along was obviously the story of a young woman who was over in Italy, who had been falsely accused or accused of murder, depending on who you ask. And - but I think that examining like, you know, things like the patriarchy and what we expect women - how women should behave, and how promiscuous they should or shouldn't be, and things like that, and just sort of the idea of what the media wants, and everything was much more interesting to me. With Tiger, it was the idea of this golfer who was almost like a blank canvas that everybody wanted to paint onto. Whether it was his father's and his dreams, that, you know, and then - or white America, or anything else. And so, trying to figure out - I think the thing for me is, is always trying to figure out what that other question - that question is, or what that larger theme is that you're trying to examine. And normally, once you figure that out, I think you - your concern over the audience for something like this goes away, meaning - you asked, you know, what do you - how do you make something for people who hate the Patriots? I think that once you find a larger question like that not only are you not worried about the people who hate the Patriots, you stop worrying about NFL fans in general, because you really find a universal story and when you talk about all these details of, you know, oh, this, you know, Tom's out and how does that make him? You know, I think there's a lot of people they've related to the idea of their worth being overlooked as they get older or feelings of betrayal or, you know, all these things that are very, very human and I think that the fact that it happened within this sort of castle up on the hill that you don't normally get to peer in, inside of, it made it feel, I jokingly sort of call it like Shakespeare but with footballs; you know, it has these, it is a very human story, and I think that because we were examining larger questions, it was for an audience that loves, hates, and could care less about football or the Patriots.
Matthew Sherwood 30:26 (31:47)
Well, and indeed, and, I mean, bit off-subject, but the other thing the film does so well - the series - is it really frames America perfectly; America in the 21st century, right; so, the first Super Bowls were right after that season after 9/11, right; and the end of the dynasty is basically about the time, you know, around the time of the US pull out - well that's a little bit before but, you know, those first two decades of the 21st century are perfectly framed. And so, just even though - and for those who are football fans, don't worry, it's focused on football - but at the same time, you can't help but - all this stuff is, you know...
Matt Hamachek 31:07
I couldn't agree more.
Matthew Sherwood 31:08
Yeah. I mean...
Matt Hamachek 31:09
... but it's really important for - one thing that's really important for me, is I greatly appreciate that you've picked up on that. And that was not by accident. But one of the things that I always try to focus on is not doing that in an overt way, right. Obviously, there is a way to make this film that is, you know, every once in a while we find a way to, like, work in something that's happening within America, like the 2008 election or something like that, or the Boston b - and how does this tie in to what we're trying - and I always think that it's kind of like you trust your audience, and if they pick up on these things, which I think you're entirely correct about; it's examination of, you know, whether it's the male ego, or a certain type of culture within America, a love of dominance, etcetera, etcetera, like all these things, I think it's all there. But I always try to not say it outright, because I kind of feel that when you're making a fiction film, you wouldn't sort of have somebody lecturing the audience about these things, you just watch it and you'd see the characters and you'd come to these conclusions on your own. And so, I really tried to make that - make docs that way, as well. And that's something that even when I was, you know, not directing, but editing is something that I always sort of pushed for as much as possible is to keep that sort of larger context out of it as much as possible, because I think that's the kind of storytelling that I just, I like.
Matthew Sherwood 32:42
No, and I think it's - well, I'm glad I did pick up on the right thing. And I also - I mean, it's done very well. And I think, even just - and partly it's because players get older, whatever - but even just sort of the locker room seems different towards the, you know, footage. And it's not quite necessarily as boisterous. And I know, we're not going to go into details about, like, things like Aaron Hernandez, and, you know, these things, but, you know, I mean, we can, but, you know, we're not it's, but, you know, there is even scenes there that are much more of another era seemingly now even compared to where we are now; not saying, you know...
Matt Hamachek 33:17
Yeah, you see the 20 years unfold over time. And that only happens, I mean, there's so many different ways that that happens. Obviously, one is just, you know, it's as simple as the way the footage looks, it's as simple - to also, even generationally, the way that people change and their tolerance for certain things. I think there's all sorts of different conversations that you can have around what you see unfold over the course of this series, because I do often even ask myself, I wonder if the guys that were part of the first generation of the Patriots would they be having the same conversations that the guys that are towards the end of it would be having...
Matthew Sherwood 34:00
Right.
Matt Hamachek 34:00
... and it's all part of it; and, yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 34:05 (35:25)
Yeah. And so - and one thing you've also got - obviously, we've already talked about, you know, all the - I forget, you said something like at least 70, I think, players and different people that you had access to. But obviously, and that's really, like you said, it's - I feel like I see some of these players in a way I hadn't thought of them before in terms of very, very, very comfortable, in terms of in front of the camera and relaying these stories, but then it gets to the big three, obviously, it gets to Belichick and Brady and Robert Kraft. I mean, how did you go about trying to interview Bill Belichick? I mean, just - have you ever had a more hostile - I mean, I don't mean this - and I know you've had a little controversy I think about this - but have you had a more hostile witness, so to speak, when trying to interview someone? I mean, he's a man of few words, if he wants to be.
Matt Hamachek 34:59
Look, I think anybody who's ever watched him up on, you know, up on the lectern after a game understands that, over time he became, you know - when he was in Cleveland, for example, when he was - the first time he was a head coach, I think part of what we were trying to show is the evolution of him over the course of time. And one of the things that happened that we didn't go into in great detail, but we wanted to sort of document was in Cleveland, he made this really tough call where he thought that there - this player, this quarterback that they had was...
Matthew Sherwood 35:33
Bernie Kosar, right.
Matt Hamachek 35:34
... Bernie Kosar was not, sort of, he said it was - the reason - he cuts him, and he says the reason is because of his diminishing skills. And one of the things that was interesting about that was he was very honest with the press. He gave them the exact reason he did it. And I think he got his head bitten off for that. And then, you know, he still tried, I think at the beginning with the Patriots, but then once Spygate happened, I think there was a feeling of betrayal. And Scott Pioli, who is the vice-president of player personnel, who's another one of our incredible interviews, he says that Bill turned inward. And it was because, partly because there was sort of a hypocrisy within the league that everybody was coming after him for this thing that...
Matthew Sherwood 36:17
Right.
Matt Hamachek 36:17
... I think they all - and I think there's truth to it, that they all - they felt like everybody else was really doing - was it because, you know, it wasn't just because the Patriots were the only ones doing it. A little bit was because they were winning too much. There was arrogance. There was hubris, there was all these things that other people didn't like, but I think a lot of it was the winning.
Matthew Sherwood 36:36
Yeah.
Matt Hamachek 36:37
And so, after that Belichick turns inward. And, you know, what you notice in my interview with Bill is that there's a lot of things that Bill likes talking about, right; there's, you know, when it's Super Bowl wins, when it's obtaining great players: he has a great moment with Randy Moss, one of the greatest wide receivers in NFL history, where he calls Randy in a club and says you have to come and Randy thinks that it's somebody impersonating Bill Belichick and...
Matthew Sherwood 37:04
That's hilarious.
Matt Hamachek 37:05
... we tell the story. So, like, Bill, you know, Bill is great. And he - you can tell he's laughing and he's having a good time with that. He certainly does it when he's talking about Lawyer Malloy, a player and, you know, when he's talking about giving up, Bill gives up his hotel room at night, you know, the week before the Super Bowl, so that Lawyer can be more comfortable. And part of the reason we showed that was the idea, this was the concept of team first in its most pure form. Everybody was buying in, everybody was doing everything that they could to make this thing happen. And then, you know, obviously, when we talk about the subjects that Belichick is not as interested in talking about, like Spygate, or sort of any of the times towards the end that were a little bit tougher. He doesn't want to talk about it. And I think that I looked at it two ways. One was, I needed to ask Bill the same questions that I had basically asked everybody else that sat down on the chair across from me. And then the other part was, I wanted to give him the opportunity to comment on the things that people were saying, and I knew - you know, I had an idea that there were going to be subjects that he didn't want to talk to, but I thought both of those things, especially the ability to comment, right, was...
Matthew Sherwood 38:17
Right, right.
Matt Hamachek 38:18
... an important part of this. And...
Matthew Sherwood 38:22
I mean, because he could have said no. He could have said, I'm not participating in this.
Matt Hamachek 38:25
Yeah. And the truth is, we talked about it. We talked about it. And I remember standing within the building - there's a department called football operations, and it has - it sort of Bill's domain, or was Bill's domain. And in the lobby, he came, and we had this conversation. I remember him asking me, How will I be portrayed in this thing? And I told him, the same answer that I give everybody, which is you're going to be portrayed somewhere between the hit piece that your enemy would make about you and the puff piece that you would make about yourself, and in between normally lies the truth about all of us, right. We're not the saints that we would like ourselves to be, and we're not the way our worst enemies see us. And so, I think that with all of the characters in this, this is the way that they were portrayed. And, you know, I think that's sort of the right way to sort of always approach it. We're all messy, and none of us are perfect. And, you know, part of telling any story is sort of getting into all of it.
Matthew Sherwood 39:30
And, you know, so, there's obviously some no-go areas. He won't go on the record about, say, Malcom Butler that one player, and the ones who really didn't play...
Matt Hamachek 39:38
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 39:39
... and, but - or saying, you know - but he's not just the only one. I mean, Tom Brady, similarly, he said, There's - he out front out, you know, says, No, I don't have anything else to say about it. There are certain things that I just will not want to share. How hard do you push on those? I mean...
Matt Hamachek 39:56
Tom, at first said, No, and then sometimes, you know, what Tom says, which you're referring to is, I asked Tom about Deflategate, which is this scandal where he was accused of under inflating footballs to get a better grip, and it sort of consumed our nation. And I think the point in covering this - that one in particular was there was a farcical nature to...
Matthew Sherwood 40:19
How we want to be so distracted away from the important things is...
Matt Hamachek 40:23
I mean, look, you know, I mean, I'm sure, your...
Matthew Sherwood 40:26
And now Michaels... yeah. Go ahead.
Matt Hamachek 40:28
Well, your listeners right now are going through with what's going on with Kate Middleton, right. It's a distraction.
Matthew Sherwood 40:33
Yeah.
Matt Hamachek 40:34
That's all it is. It's a distraction. And I think everybody is consumed by that right now and ignoring incredibly important things that are going on in our world, right now. And so, you know, that's the reason I'm going to cover that. But getting back to the interview. I asked Tom, would you like to comment? And he says, No. And then one of the things that I some - I mean, you interview people sort of in different ways, depending on their personality, but oftentimes I pause afterwards, because sometimes people fill in the silence...
Matthew Sherwood 41:08
Right.
Matt Hamachek 41:08
... in Tom's case he did. He said, You know, it was something that was - it became something that was much more about under inflated footballs in the end. And sometimes you have to learn when to drop the rope and move on.
Matthew Sherwood 41:24
That's right. Yeah.
Matt Hamachek 41:25
And so, you know, it's an interesting thing, because you correctly pointed out that at first, he says, No, but it's interesting. A lot of people have just said that he says, No. But he actually does go on to talk about it, and sort of...
Matthew Sherwood 41:36
Right.
Matt Hamachek 41:36
... and that was a moment, and I do that; you know, sometimes we pause and just let people fill in the air afterwards. Because I feel like sometimes people have more that they actually want to say, and then they don't. And so, and giving them room to comment is important. But also, with Belichick, there were times when I would ask the question, he would say, No. He never filled in the air. But I also - and I left that in at times, because I wanted people to understand that there wasn't more on the cutting room floor, that he didn't then respond to the question the sort of the way that Tom does. And we show Tom doing that. And so, a lot of it was just, you know, I think in an interesting way, all the coaches, all the people in the coaching staff, including Bill, were sort of asked the same questions and all the players, a lot of them were asked the same questions and sort of treated the same way. And I don't want to make it sound cold, but you know, a lot of people have asked me this question, What was it like to sit across from Tom? Or what was it like to sit across from Bill? Not being a fan helped in that case - in this case, because I know, obviously, they aren't the same as any other player or any other coaching person on the coaching staff. But to a degree, that's how we viewed it.
Matthew Sherwood 42:56 (44:16)
And so, since you previous - I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, but since you also did the Tiger doc, I mean, since we are talking about potentially, if - I don't if there's much debate, but two GOATs, really in their different - is there something that, you know, in terms of this key to greatness, is there something that you saw that's similar in both of them, that drove them to achieve what they have achieved?
Matt Hamachek 43:23
I think there's obviously a lot of things that they don't have in common, right, because Tiger obviously had immense issues within his personal life, and part of his story is different in a lot of ways because of that. But I think the one key - it's a combination of two things - the first is, even from a young age being just driven in a way that most people will never be, but then even when you obtain greatness multiple times over, finding something that motivates you to continue to do it, to get a little bit better, even when the difference between where you're at and where you're trying to get to is a fraction of a percentile, right. And so, in an interesting way, despite the fact that Belichick's sort of culture and, you know, according to the people that we talked to, the way he treated Tom at times, is part of what led to the end of Tom being on the team, I also think that it'd be foolish to ignore the fact that he was the perfect coach for Tom. He was the guy who always kept the carrot just out of reach, right, and never gave him that approval for a guy that desperately, according to some people, were seeking it. I think that for a guy who had won five Super Bowls, and then eventually won a sixth, and then went on to - and then left and went to go on to win a seven. Having somebody like Belichick in his life who never gave him that thing that he apparently was craving was crucial to this all working. And I think similarly, I don't think there could have been a more perfect quarterback for Belichick than Tom Brady, because the quarter - this is in America, 91 out of the top 100 television events give or take every year are NFL events, right. And a quarterback is THE position within the NFL. And Tom was not only the most accomplished quarterback of all time, he was also a global celebrity married to a supermodel. And more often times than not that person, sort of rightfully so and understandably so, would become larger than just the position on the team and part of a cog in a, you know, in a wheel. But Tom's willingness to play that game and play that role for Belichick for all these years was - if you would had anybody else, I just don't think it would have ever worked. And that doesn't mean that it takes away from either of their accomplishments individually, and it doesn't. And I think more importantly for me, because I asked Scott Pioli this question in Episode Ten, I say, Who's responsible? Is it more Tom or more Bill? Because everybody's asking this question. And I think Scott's answer is one of the best in the entire series. And he says, It's disrespectful to every coach, every player who's come through this organisation. And at the end of Episode Ten, there's this moment where Tom says, it's perfect. It doesn't need to be anything more than that. You know. And I have been thinking about that, as I've been - as we were making it, as this thing is starting to roll out. And I can't put in to Tom's mouth what I think he was meaning by that. But I think that for me, I think in a way, it's to me what I take that as is that, it's the great highs, it's the messiness, it's all of it. And it's all in that sort of cauldron of everything that made this team is perfect. And it doesn't need to be anything more than that. And I think that, you know, if the goal was to win, and win at a level that has never been accomplished before, and will never be accomplished again, they accomplished their goal, and they obtained as close to perfection as you can possibly get, despite all of the messiness.
Matthew Sherwood 47:46
Yeah. I think - yeah, perfectly said. And I think also, if I recall correctly, this probably is in the last couple of episodes, but at least one, if not a few others, and I think Robert Kraft's one of them, even says life is messy. Life...
Matt Hamachek 48:00
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 48:00
... you know, they say these things.
Matt Hamachek 48:01
As much as we wanted - he says, life is sort of imperfect as much as we want it to be the opposite or something to that effect, right.
Matthew Sherwood 48:09
Yeah. Something - yeah, exactly.
Matt Hamachek 48:11
... yeah. And so, that's an easy thing for a person who's - that kind of perspective, which I think, you know, one of the things we talked about earlier is that I never wanted to let perspective be part of - like, I didn't want to have that 30,000 foot view of the story and reflecting back. And I think in Episode Ten, for the last sort of 10 minutes of the episode is where we finally allow that to come flooding in the door, right. And so, that's an easy thing for him to say, because, you know, he's 82 years old, and, you know, however, I think, maybe 81 when he said it, but I think that what you get to witness with all of these characters, but in particular, Tom, because when he starts this story, he's 20 something years old, you know, and he's learning a lot of life lessons along the way. And then when we interviewed him, he was in the middle of not only his career ending, but also a divorce from his wife, which we don't get into, you know, we don't really get into it at all, their personal lives, in the story. But I think one of the reasons that viewers will be surprised when they watch Tom in this is that he was at a very interesting and sort of inflection point in his life, obviously, when he sat down to interview for this thing, and I think that made - one of the reasons that I think his interview is so great is because he just - he had a lot going on, and he was thinking about a lot of things and it was taking him back to these moments that were sort of incredibly pivotal in his life. And I think he was maybe at a place also where it was - he could sort of take you back into the room and relive some of those moments.
Matthew Sherwood 49:50 (51:25)
It's very intimate. I mean, more - especially - more than I was expecting, especially when you get to some of the latter period. So, how does it - we don't have much time left, actually, but how does it feel like - how does it feel that this is finally all coming to an end, you must feel like you've put the equivalent of two decades into this project.
Matt Hamachek 50:11
Yeah! I think that I was very, very fortunate to work with an incredible team of people. And the reason I can say that is because, I mean, it took us two-and-a-half years more from start to finish to do this story, and that involved a lot of running all over the country to do these interviews, and then, you know, it was countless hours of dedication and sort of determination to get the thing to the place where we knew it had to get to. But the best feeling in the world is when - even when you look at the imperfections of the film, and you know that they're there, you can have the confidence in saying, I know that there are reasons why we got there and so to have that feeling and then sort of see it go out into the world. And see all the reactions, it's kind of fantastic. And it's - I'll put it this way, I'm very much looking forward to sort of spending some more time with my family and going on a vacation where - we're about to go on spring break, and the last few times we went to the same place for a spring break, I spent most of the time on Zoom calls with the team, talking about episode structure and story things and stuff like that. So, I think everybody's looking forward, my family is looking forward, to me actually getting to be on vacation for the first time for the spring break.
Matthew Sherwood 51:36 (53:01)
Well, yeah, I do hope you enjoy that. And then speaking of teams, so - you see how I've set this up - the lessons learned from following the Patriots. Do you apply them to teams making documentary films? I mean, is it the same - do you need these sometimes not greatest relationships? Sometimes the best creativity comes out of contentious relationships, what - I mean, what's your view...
Matt Hamachek 52:02
Yeah, no, I think - well, the reason I was nodding my head at first is I have an editor on the project, Dan Koehler, who I've collaborated with on almost all of, like, the last 10 years of projects I've worked on. And he is my closest collaborator, and one of the most talented humans out there. And he's a great, great storyteller, and there's no way I would have been able to accomplish this, Tiger, anything else without him.
Matthew Sherwood 52:28
Right.
Matt Hamachek 52:29
... and we always talk about how, you know, both on Tiger and this, that there, I'll admit that there were definitely times where we said, Man, some of the maniacal determination aspects of telling these stories about these people have creeped their way into our lives and we normally said this when we were up at four o'clock in the morning, you know, and sort of pushing and pushing and pushing and trying to get it to where it needed to go. But I think that the second part of what you said, is right, which is that you need to surround yourself at all times with people who are willing to disagree with you and tell you no and why.
Matthew Sherwood 53:16
Yeah.
Matt Hamachek 53:17
I don't think that that needs to get as contentious as it got on the Patriots...
Matthew Sherwood 53:22
Right.
Matt Hamachek 53:22
... to succeed, I think you just need to have a healthy environment where people can tell you you're being an idiot, and that they're right, and you're wrong. And look, there were times - I actually talked about this with Dan. In the tenth episode, there was a time when I was convinced, and it sounds so silly, but I was convinced that we shouldn't leave in the middle of a Super Bowl and go back to a moment where we were examining how Bill Belichick came up with a scheme that he did by sort of going back into the building and doing a flashback in the middle of Super Bowl, because I was convinced that the energy of being in the building and sort of seeing the footage of all this stuff was so important. And he just, he - we - you know, we got into a big battle about it, basically, and he said, Look, I'm right, here. And finally, I just said, Okay, when Dan digs in this much, this is the time for me to sort of get my head out of my butt and sort of ask a few other people. And so, I actually polled about five people on the film and universally they all said, Yeah, you're being an absolute moron. It's time to make a change. And so, that happened a couple times. But that kind of creative tension can lead to great things. And so, as long as you're willing to embrace it, and hopefully keep the darker, more maniacal parts of making these things at bay, normally you feel good about the product when it comes out and sort of the rest is up to the audience.
Matthew Sherwood 54:52 (56:13)
And is that your experience that you've - because I know early in your career, you've worked with Dawn Porter, who we recently had on, and Matt Heineman who we've had; you know - because they're greats, right. So, the lessons you've learned, you know, from them.
Matt Hamachek 55:05
I have basically the greatest education you could possibly have in documentaries by starting working for Marshall Curry who did - made Street Fight, we made - then we - which I was an assistant editor on - and then worked with him on Racing Dreams and If a Tree Falls and Point and Shoot, and then as soon as I left, he finally won his Oscar because I was clearly dragging him down. And now - and then I worked with Matt Heineman for a number of years, Liz Garbus, Dawn Porter. And I think that, you know, you think about how much people pay to go and get an education from the top universities in the world, and I got to get paid to sort of work with these masters at their craft, and learn all these things and help them tell their stories. And I think that - you know, I got to look at all the raw footage, so I got to see how all these people ask questions, and then being able to take all of it and sort of apply it once, you know, I finally got into the director's seat was obviously, you know, a huge, a huge honour. And I think there's no right or wrong way to make documentaries, I don't think. I think it's sort of - I think what I've always just felt is, you know, make the kind of movies or series or whatever that you want to watch, and if you sort of stay true to that, then you'll probably make something that other folks like to watch.
Matthew Sherwood 56:30
Usually I would close by asking you what's next but, you know, what, I'm not. I'm going to let you take that holiday, that vacation you deserve...
Matt Hamachek 56:37
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 56:37
... you know, so forget about that. Go wherever you're going, a beach, the mountains, wherever, enjoy yourself.
Matt Hamachek 56:44
The beach, the beach.
Matthew Sherwood 56:44
Yes.
Matt Hamachek 56:45
That seems to be nice. But no, yeah, I'm taking - I'm gonna take a couple of months, and then start looking into the next thing.
Matthew Sherwood 56:52
Okay. Well, it's been a joy having you on and I would love to have you on again if you're up for it. And Matt Hamachek, just to remind our listeners we talked with Matt Hamachek, the director of the docu-series The Dynasty: New England Patriots. Episodes One to Ten available on Apple TV Plus, do check it out. Thanks again, Matt.
Matthew Sherwood 57:20
Thanks again for joining us on Factual America. A big shout out to everyone at Innersound Audio in York, England for their great studio and fine editing and production skills. A big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to you our listeners. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 58:00
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