Call me "The Fan In The Arena", but I owe quite a bit to Tom Brady. Personally, professionally, he's my favorite athlete of all-time, always will be.
Like millions of others in New England, I could never consume enough Brady. So for someone who's followed TB12 as intensely as I have for the past 20-plus years, I'm pretty much a prime target, the perfect demo, for something like his new bio-docu-series, "Man In The Arena".
When it was announced last May that the series would debut this November I think most Patriots fans, present company included, didn't have the most intense appetite for it, though. And it wasn't about it coming out while Brady was still playing, unlike a similar project, Michael Jordan's 'The Last Dance", which came out twenty years after he retired. This was more about there being a bit of bad taste in some mouths in Pats Nation as Brady had just won a Super Bowl with another team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (we're not doing the how and why he left here). It's only natural, even with the team doing well now people will always miss him in New England, wish he never left.
But Brady's return to Foxboro this fall, and his reconnection with the fans who lived and died by his every move, play, triumph and failure over twenty years, seems to have mended fences or just plain made it OK to re-consume unlimited quantities of The GOAT. The team we love has a future and a new QB, so we don't need to bask in nostalgia for any football feels. But we'll always have Brady and his two decades of greatness in Foxborough to share.
All that said, who wouldn't want to get as much of his personal insight and perspective on his Super Bowl runs as possible? Win or lose. Maybe finally we'll get some answers to the biggest mysteries of the greatest double dynastic run in football history? Or at least more beautifully photographed, well-edited highlights of the plays that defined our fandom. As Brady himself would yell, "Let's Go!!!"
"OK, guy, nice preamble and all. So how is it?" What do you think? It's freaking awesome!
The first episode, about the 2001 season, is long, almost an hour, but it has every reason to be the most thorough, involving and in-depth. This is both the introduction to Brady as QB of the Pats as well as the tale of arguably the most improbable Super Bowl season in NFL history.
You get the requisite NFL Films style highlights, music, graphics, all of it. The primary interview subjects are Brady, Willie McGinest and ... Drew Bledsoe. Yes, the former Patriot quarterback, the man who Brady usurped as starter, the man forced to watch from the sidelines in the arena as a second-year sixth-round pick lead his team to a championship. Bledsoe provides an emotional core to the episode that only intensifies a fan's appreciation of what took place. I loved Drew Bledsoe - still do! He is truly the first Patriot that I thought was great, a star. He took us from the depths back to relevance in the 1990s. Bledsoe to Coates was the electrifying QB to TE connection before Brady to Gronk became the best ever. To see the pain he was going through, to know that while this incredible Cinderella story is taking place one of your favorites was struggling with what was going on...it's incredible. New depth is layered into a story we all know so well, but can never get enough of. And hearing Bledsoe talk about what coming into the AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh meant to him, and then Brady getting the Super Bowl nod. You can only tie a fan up into so many emotional pretzels!
McGinest, another red jacket Patriots Hall of Famer, brings top flight storytelling (all theseyears on NFL Network have groomed him for this) and a perspective from the defense as well as a team leader. A perfect combo to accompany Brady. Who by the way swears aplenty and it's not censored (See! He is like the rest of us!) We've always known he cusses like a sailor, but letting these world class athletes and Foxboro Favorites tell it like they want makes it more entertaining an relatable.
And yes, you get to relive, in glorious high def, those iconic moments and unforgettable plays from the season - Brady's first start, losing to the Rams, the Tuck Rule - and it all feels fresh. Yet it all feels new with the interweaving of key moments and the direct-to-camera storytelling from Brady, Bledsoe and McGinest. By the time you get to Super Bowl 36 and Vinatieri's (spoiler alert!) game-winning kick .. forget it. Tears in your eyes while you wanna run through a wall.
The series is produced slickly with great cinematography, graphics and well-paced editing. Reminiscent of "Tom vs. Time", Brady's 2017 in-season Facebook series, also directed by his friend and production company partner, Gotham Chopra.
For a story we know all too well, which we can consume so many ways - DVDs, YouTube, podcasts - "Man In The Arena" made this lifelong Patriots fan appreciate how amazing that season, that team and Brady's ascension really were. And I promise you'll want to get your Bledsoe jersey out of storage and wear it to a game again soon.
I've watched it twice already, and this may be the way I'll introduce my kids to the greatness of Brady and the 2001 Patriots. Yes, it's that good. It's Brady's series, but Bledsoe is the unlikely star of Episode 1. Great choice by the production team.
Even though there's a big 2021 Patriots game to watch Thursday night I can't wait for Episode 2 about Super Bowl 38. "The Man In The Arena" is top-shelf sports entertainment. But for us Patriots fans it's the latest and maybe one of the best reminders of how great Brady is, what a classy act Drew Bledsoe is, how awesome those teams were, and how lucky we as fans will always be. Lucky, lucky us.
