A number of former Patriots players are continuing to come to the defense of coach Bill Belichick after seeing his depiction in Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty” documentary.
Last week, ex-New England DBs Devin McCourty and Rodney Harrison spoke out on the doc. Now Matthew Slater and Julian Edelman (who appeared in the series) are attempting to set the record straight. With Slater saying on Edelman’s “Games with Names” podcast:
I know there are some comments that I made on there that made it seem like Bill [Belichick] was just this very demanding presence — and he was, but I also want people to see that there are multiple sides of Bill. And 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. And there are things that, you know, 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.
Edelman agreed with Slater’s takeaways and was very candid about Belichick’s tough love.
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. 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. I [expletive] about it all the time. But we needed it. And that’s why you went into every single game knowing you outprepared that team and you have a shot to win. Every single game.
Some have argued that Belichick did it to himself by refusing to answer key questions surrounding essential topics and showing a lack of emotion/enthusiasm throughout the documentary.
But at the end of the day, he created the environment for the Patriots to have the success that they did and there aren’t six Super Bowl trophies sitting at 1 Patriot Pl without him.