Matthew Slater, Julian Edelman back Bill Belichick amid ‘The Dynasty’ backlash
"I honestly think if you’re in your 30s and you’ve played football, I don’t think you’ve ever liked your football coach."
Count Julian Edelman and Matthew Slater as the latest in a long line of former Patriots players giving two thumbs down to Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty” docuseries.
The 10-part show — detailing the Patriots’ two-decade run that resulted in six Super Bowl titles — cultivated plenty of controversy throughout its month-long run.
Despite the unequaled success that New England achieved during the Brady-Belichick era, “The Dynasty” has elicited some negative responses for an emphasis on the low points and an omission of some of the more cherished highlights of the Patriots’ 20-year reign atop the NFL.
But several sizable digs at Bill Belichick throughout the docuseries have led to the strongest response from several ex-Patriots — including Edelman and Slater.
Even though Belichick’s exacting nature and high standards might wear on players over several seasons, Edelman stressed that no respected head coach can operate at a high level without taking their players to task.
“I honestly think if you’re in your 30s and you’ve played football, I don’t think you’ve ever liked your football coach. You loved him. But you didn’t like your football coach,” Edelman said during the latest episode of his “Games With Names” podcast. “Just like I didn’t like my parents when they made me do things that they knew was gonna make me a better person.
“I didn’t like doing it, we didn’t like doing it, work’s not easy, doing the little (expletive) for preparation, doing walkthroughs for walkthroughs for walkthroughs, I hated it.”
Slater, who was the guest on the latest “Games With Names” episode, acknowledged that he made a few comments during the docuseries that seemingly painted Belichick as a stringent authoritarian during every minute he was running things in Foxborough.
“It’s tough because I feel like he’s being portrayed in a certain light. And we’re painting a picture, but we’re only showing people part of the picture. With coach, it’s very complex,” Slater said. “And there are things that were tough, and I’m sure we all feel like, ‘Hey, maybe we wish we had done things this way.’
“But let’s make sure none of us forget the fact that the dynasty is not even being talked about without Bill Belichick. And the things that he did were with intentionality and purpose, and I think he got the best out of all of us.”
Speaking last week on MassLive’s “Eye on Foxborough” podcast, Patriots great Rob Gronkowski echoed a similar message about Belichick and his role in establishing New England’s sustained stretch of success.
“It was very sad to see Coach Belichick go, because there wouldn’t have been a dynasty, there wouldn’t have been 20-plus years of a winning culture without Coach Belichick. He set the standard. Coach Belichick was the standard,” Gronkowski said. “And without him, none of this was possible. There’s no doubt about that. And to see him go was sad. I mean, I had a tear. Without him, like I said, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison admitted last week that he “didn’t enjoy” watching “The Dynasty”, while fellow defensive back Devin McCourty said he felt like he was “duped” by taking part in hours of interviews for the project.
Even Patriots owner Robert Kraft was not pleased with the finished product put together by “The Dynasty”.
“I loved the first three episodes,” Kraft said to reporters on Tuesday morning. “I felt bad that there was so much emphasis on the more controversial and let’s say ‘challenging’ situations over the last 20 years. I wish they had focused more on our Super Bowl wins, our 21-game win streak.
“I felt bad there were players who gave hours and hours of interviews and they felt only the negativity,” Kraft added.
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