The Dynasty: New England Patriots is the latest sports docuseries to take a long look back at a recent championship dynasty. The documentary has gotten some pretty favorable reviews from critics, and NFL fans have enjoyed what they’ve seen. Among the many pleasantries the docuseries has to offer is its rawness and willingness to be critical. Owner Robert Kraft had a lot to do with that, as Kraft was heavily featured throughout the series.
But while critics and otherwise have waxed about the docuseries’ willingness, Kraft has not. The Patriots owner appeared to feel let down by the AppleTV+ docuseries, per recent comments.
Kraft fielded questions during the NFL’s annual league meeting and voiced his “disappointment” over the docuseries.
“I felt bad that there was so much emphasis on the more controversial and let’s say ‘challenging’ situations over the last 20 years,” Kraft said via ESPN.
“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 [was used]. … So a little disappointed that there wasn’t more of a real positive approach — especially for Patriot fans who have lived the experience with us.”
Kraft’s words are a bit surprising considering that he and Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer – who helped head the film series – are good friends and appeared to be on the same page.
His words may express disappointment, but they also read like agency and control over the situation as well. While the “positives” could have been emphasized, let’s call a fig a fig. Part of what made the Patriots so famous was their infamy. A series focused entirely on the positives lacks the narrative stakes needed to make a docuseries like this compelling.
And if the docuseries didn’t touch on those topics at all, and everything was just glowing? There would have been a mess of problems from that. There’s a level of honesty and reality that has to be practiced with these documentaries.
Netflix has gotten dinged up over their past few titles for their lack of invasiveness and for who they’ve allowed to control the narrative. Untold: Swamp Kings avoided the controversies of Florida’s Urban Meyer era in favor of access. Then there was Untold: Johnny Football, which arguably wasn’t as intense as it needed to be.
For Kraft, this is just a matter of reality being what it is, however you might like the story to be told.
[ESPN]
