Growing up in Connecticut, I have been a Pats fan for more than 40 years - watching them fail, succeed, fail and succeed. But I’m a hard fan - I’ll find fault where the more generous fans either give them a pass, or don’t even see what I see. Friends who are fans hear me rant and think, “Here he goes again.” (and tune me out!) I never had delusions that things were a happy New Age commune story, but I was impressed at what the skill set of a few, and the determination of a fewer, the past twenty years brought to the franchise. This is a warts and all reporting that should appeal to any fan of New England, and even to many fans of the game who are not fans of BB and TB. I never liked Peyton Manning, but I respected what he was as a QB. Even after all of his accomplishments, I don’t think Brady gets the same respect. Perhaps after winning so big in Tampa Bay, at such a geriatric age!, he might have convinced a few to reconsider.

So, warts - the “*Gates”, the tensions, the Belichick distancing (at the end, Brady was done - “a few days after Brady signed with his new team, he wrote an essay for the Players’ Tribune, focused on endings and beginnings. He thanked Kraft by name. He didn’t thank Bill Belichick.”), the failure to cultivate quality WRs - and all - six trophies, an unmatched set of division and conference wins, unmatched trips to the show - this is well-sourced, dispassionately reported, and comprehensive look at one team that plays a game of which Wickingham says “A funny thing about football fans is that almost none of them actually understand what they’re watching, because the game some of them played in high school bears no resemblance to the modern, endlessly complicated sport.”

A few highlights:

“I think he would have been a great baseball player,” Galynn later said. “He was a catcher with a wonderful swing.” “I’m not as convinced,” Tom Sr. replied. “He could leg a triple into a single better than anybody.”

Hah!

“People always wonder what it’s like to be famous. This was it: you’re alone, it’s quiet, there’s space, and all of a sudden, it’s as if you’ve entered a surprise birthday party thrown for you by strangers.”

“He doesn’t hold grudges,” a friend of Belichick’s had once said. “He holds death. With a grudge, there’s a chance of reconciliation. With death, there is no chance.”

Wow.

On the videotaping of signs,

Goodell set himself an impossible task: he tried to educate himself on the advantage the Patriots had accrued in the seven years they had been taping their opponents. He called around the league, including to Mike Shanahan. “What’s going on here?” Goodell said. “I wish I had thought to videotape signals,” Shanahan replied. “I’m disappointed in myself.” It was a sobering glimpse into the mindset of the best of the best. Unlike many in the league, who took the opportunity to pile on Belichick when talking with Goodell, here was a two-time Super Bowl champion responding with honesty—and envy. “Roger,” Shanahan continued, “first of all, people are always trying to steal signs. Peyton Manning is the best. If you don’t change your signals, you’re dead.”
[…]
It seemed to hit Goodell that this went beyond the Patriots. “It’s really been going on for that long?” he said. “I can promise you,” Shanahan said.

Other coaches said they did it, but the Pats have the stigma.

“Most of Belichick’s charges emulated him a little too much. Something deeply psychological was at work. None of the coaches who had grown out of Bill Walsh’s tree had struggled to find themselves or to find success away from San Francisco. The branches of Belichick’s coaching tree seemed to grow toward the ground.”
Pretty much everybody who leaves NE - except Brady, and maybe Vrabel- either fails or is just mediocre.

“Many times throughout the 2017 season, Brady had wondered, Why am I doing this? […] and why constantly have to reread The Four Agreements to remind himself what really mattered?” Oh, my… that is an awfully bad book! ( )