fbpx
Latest:
Couch Guy Sports
NFLPATRIOTS

A Patriots Version of The Last Dance

Connor Ryan

The Last Dance, the documentary about Michael Jordan and the 90’s Chicago Bulls dynasty is sweeping the nation in a frenzy because not only is it the only semblance of sports that we have right now but it’s also really damn good. There are so many stories to tell, so much unseen footage to see, and so many memes.

And it got me thinking, is there a  similar documentary to make about the New England Patriots? What if, in the equivalent of Fort Knox that is Gillette Stadium, there were cameras capturing everything within those walls. It’s very possible. Bill Belichick allowed it to happen during the 2009 season for NFL Networks “A Football Life”. Tom Brady made his Facebook series “Tom vs. Time”, so it could be a possibility.

Say that this wild pipe dream is true, what stories would you most want to hear about? What would you most want to see? I’m here to give you what I would most want to see if there was a Last Dance, New England Patriots edition.

28-3

What’s great about the Last Dance is that it covers Michael Jordan’s entire career. Not only do we get an inside glimpse of his final season with the Bulls but also into every moment of his career. And I would believe no moment would be greater for Tom Brady than Super Bowl 51. Not only because of the comeback but for many, it was the crowning achievement that made him the GOAT. And as Tom Curran puts it on the Dan Patrick Show when asked about this exact question, it’s also when things began to truly change for the dynasty.  (Skip to the 7:00 minute mark)

He makes a good point, prior to that game it seemed as though Belichick and Brady were like — SPOILER –the combined Dolores’ in season three of Westworld. Separate bodies but one copied mind and one common goal, winning football games and accumulating championships in the most Machiavellian way possible. But after Super Bowl 51 you began to see Brady want his role and legacy to be remembered as something greater. He did the Tom vs. Time episodes, skipped OTA’s, cared about how the public viewed him not just as a football player but also as a father, husband and businessman. What was once an unstoppable machine that set aside ego and personal glory for the satisfaction of winning began to crack from within when everyone thought it was at its strongest.

Deflategate

The event that truly pitted the New England vs. Everybody mentality. For most of you reading this, you are in a safe bubble of the country where your co-workers agree with you that Tom Brady is innocent and did nothing wrong. But if you’re like me, living outside of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and the eastern half of Connecticut then you know the constant struggle it is to defend Tom Brady and the Patriots when everyone wants to simply label them as cheaters. I want an in depth look into what deflategate truly was and I want the world to finally see the witch hunt that ESPN created for the NFL.

How Chris Mortensen botched the initial report  and failed to immediately correct himself, rather let the world think his initial “11 out of 12 balls were all under inflated by 2 psi” report was still correct! How Ted Wells, said in his report that it was likely Brady knew about under inflating footballs but there was zero evidence to support his claim and Goodell decided that was good enough to suspend Brady longer than he does most women abusers within the league. And how ESPN then tried and wipe their bloody hands of this mess with a column five years later blaming the entire scandal on the NFL. Also how there have been cases like this in the concurrent years with footballs improperly inflated in games and the NFL has just brushed it aside like the meaningless issue it truly is.

Basically I want the world to see that the media manipulated them into hating Tom Brady and the Patriots.

That ESPN fed them headlines with no real substance and when the true evidence came out against them they just swept it under the rug, leaving everyone outside of New England to believe that Brady and the Patriots were guilty.

And can they explain how two weeks after the scandal began the Pats won the Super Bowl behind Brady’s 37/50 passing for 354 yards and 4 TD’s against the best secondary the modern NFL has seen. Ok I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Spygate

Just Kidding I’m back on it! This would give us another chance to expose ESPN for blowing spy gate out of proportion. Spygate was not as big of a deal as one would think, it simply was that you couldn’t video tape the opposing coaches from the sideline, rather you had to do it from a covered area somewhere else within the stadium. That’s all Spygate was folks, it was a memo that Belichick crumpled up and tossed in the garbage. But Patriots haters want to hang an asterisk next to all six championships because of that. When in reality, everyone in the world did it as Jimmy Johnson, a Hall of Fame coach will tell you. And that report about taping the Rams walkthrough? Not true at all, but ESPN doesn’t want you to know that.

Malcolm Butler

Did anyone who wasn’t a psychopathic murderer have a stranger beginning and end to their Patriots career than Butler? He made the greatest single play in Super Bowl history. Butler saved the Patriots from another gut wrenching defeat in the biggest game. Not to mention, he launched the dynasty 2.0 to being benched in the biggest game and watching Nick Foles right arm turning into a human flame thrower torching the Pats secondary with RPO’s.

It would be great to finally learn what did Butler do to be benched in the Super Bowl. And not only that but to stay benched as Matt Patricia’s gameplay was reduced to ashes. Butler played one single snap of that game and it was on special teams. Butler has been famously tight lipped since that game about what happened but give it a couple of decades time is the story ready to be told? I really hope it is.

And I will not get into an argument that the Pats win that game with Butler playing, I’m not sure he made that big of a difference. But I will get into how the NFL’s “What the hell is a catch?” rules suddenly became very flimsy for that game.

Makes sense…

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight this is a “catch.”

The Jimmy G Trade

This would be the episode where we find out if Seth Wickersham was right. The power struggle between Brady and Belichick we realized had come to a head finally during the 2019 season actually started back in 2017. The idea that there was this inner turmoil within Foxboro was disguised with wins, championships and bland press conferences that ended with nothing but veiled pleasantries for each other. Perhaps in twenty years people with the team will begin to open up about what really happened with Tom Brady forcing Jimmy G out of Foxboro. Maybe too that Belichick purposefully shipped Garoppolo to San Fran, Brady’s childhood team just to get back at Tom.

Or perhaps we get Jimmy G saying he asked for the trade. That he refused to sit behind Brady any longer. Either start him or trade him and that there was no scenario in which he would re-sign with the team with Brady still there. And I can’t blame him, who wants to be a back up in pro football when he clearly has shown he can be a high quality NFL starter.

Aaron Hernandez

There have been plenty of documentaries already about Aaron Hernandez. Each one claims they have more shocking revelations than the last. But to possibly be able to hear it from Belichick or Kraft themselves about the situation would certainly be interesting. Unfortunately you can’t really paint a true picture about the Patriots 20 year run without including the Hernandez story.

Brady vs. Manning

An episode dedicated to detailing the classic rivalry between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. So many great games between the two of them and if they had Manning, Tony Dungy and other Colts/Broncos talk about the rivalry it would make for one hell of an episode.

And just the parallel of their careers as well. Manning was the golden boy, son of a NFL quarterback, the hero of Tennessee, number one overall pick, handed the franchise from day one and surrounded with prolific weapons right off the bat. Against Brady, the overlooked guy at Michigan who couldn’t even start on his own team, drafted 199 overall, had to earn his starting spot on the Patriots and wasn’t given weapons for his first few seasons.

Also commonly forgotten was how the Pats and Colts prior to 2002 were both in the AFC East. Imagine a world in which Brady and Manning faced each other twice a year at the very least?

The New York Giants

This sucks but we have to talk about it. The Patriots kryptonite was Eli Manning and the New York Giants. Tom Brady has eight championships if Eli doesn’t pull off some voodoo, Houdini magic in those Super Bowls. The amount of turnovers the Pats could have had in both of those games is absolutely sickening.

If this happens to you in Madden, there is a hole in your television. Honestly this is tougher to watch than the Tyree catch. If the Pats make even just one or two of these plays, it’s eight rings for the Bradichick dynasty.

Bill Belichick

Give me all of the raw, unfiltered Bill Belichick that you can give me. He is the most interesting person in this documentary for me. When the camera is on he seems like a curmudgeon who hates happiness and only cares about his football team scoring more points than the opponent. Yet former players say he’s hilarious and does have a soft side to him, just give me more Bill Belichick!

And give me more Nike!

Ernie Adams

Can we finally get an explanation as to what the hell this guy really does? Perhaps this whole time, what was really holding the dynasty together wasn’t Brady or Belichick but rather this guy.

No chance this was a mistake, especially in todays world that we live in, we all pick our zoom backgrounds carefully. Is he attempting to communicate something? We’re the pictures previously in those frames incriminating of something? Or is he just trolling everyone? Either way I need to know more about the mystery that is Ernie Adams.

Rob Gronkowski

This is an easy one. The dude is a non stop party. There has to be some untold Gronk footage and stories out there that would light up twitter for a a few days.

2019 Season

The final season of the Brady-Belichick 20 year dynasty. What a roller coaster journey! Brady says he knew 2019 was his last with New England during training camp. The Pats granted said request by restructuring his contract to let him be a free agent. Then the entire Antonio Brown saga that lasted all of about two weeks. Josh Gordon, Gronk teasing fans about coming back, and then the loss to Miami in Week 17 and the Titans on Wild Card Weekend.

NINTCHDBPICT000522243258-e1568738488341

The Patriots went from columns about can they go undefeated? To the greatest football dynasty being broken up in the span of about six months. Little did we know that the barbarians were already at the gates.

 

Connor Ryan (@Connoryan68)

What Do You Think? Leave a Comment!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Couch Guy Sports

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading