Rodney Harrison and Devin McCourty were key players for the New England Patriots during their glory years, but they felt slighted by their roles in the Apple TV+ docuseries about that era.
The Dynasty: New England Patriots, which premiered Feb. 16, covers the team’s dominance under head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady.
Both McCourty and Harrison were members of multiple Super Bowl-winning Pats teams during that period, but both say they were overlooked by The Dynasty. The two former stars, now analysts on NBC’s Football Night in America, shared their frustrations Tuesday on the show’s podcast.
“I felt like I got kind of duped,” McCourty said. “I was like, ‘Man, this is gonna be great. Like the storytelling, we’re talking about this, and we’re talking about that.’ Everything that we all gave to the 20 years that it encompassed, they only hit anything that was negative.
“Hey, we won at a high level, and guys stayed there. Like I could’ve left two times; I signed back. There’s reasons why.”
Harrison said he sat for hours of interviews for the show but had only a brief role.
“I interviewed for five or six hours, I was in New York, and all they had me say was ‘F*** ’em all, f*** ’em all.’ Like, that’s it!” Harrison said, regarding his comments on the team’s response to the Spygate controversy in 2007.
Devin McCourty and Rodney Harrison on The Dynasty series. pic.twitter.com/syG12yvmyA
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) March 19, 2024
The show did focus quite a bit on controversies surrounding the team during that era, including Spygate, Deflategate, and Aaron Hernandez’s arrest, not to mention the growing rift between Brady and Belichick.
Coincidentally, Awful Announcing published an exclusive interview with series director Matthew Hamachek on Tuesday. Hamachek told Jesse Pantuosco that scenes involving Harrison were the toughest production cuts in the entire series (the interview published before Harrison’s comments).
“There were definitely some people on the cutting-room floor like Rodney Harrison, who was fantastic,” Hamachek said. “He came in after the first Super Bowl and was really part of the second and third. Because we felt like we were going to move over those [years] a little bit faster, he was unfortunately on the cutting-room floor. There were a few people like that.”
While the series has earned widespread praise, Harrison and McCourty aren’t the only ones who’ve had issues with The Dynasty’s focus. Bill Simmons, a huge Patriots fan, recently praised the series for being “very well edited and very well done,” but complained, “It is so anti-Belichick and so pro-Kraft that it’s hard for me to wrap my head around.”
Other complaints included a viral post on X/Twitter Monday that alleged producers cut Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles’ name out of a Super Bowl highlight, supposedly at the request of Brady.
Harrison said the series shorted Belichick credit for his role in the dynasty.
“I just don’t think he got enough credit, enough respect, enough props,” Harrison said. “Man, this dude is the greatest coach of all time.”
Producing this type of sports documentary can cause strife. ESPN’s popular The Last Dance series on the Chicago Bulls dynasty generated similar controversy, including complaints that Michael Jordan had too much influence.
[Pro Football Talk; Photo Credit: Football Night in America Podcast]
