McCourty, Harrison Unimpressed With “The Dynasty”

Apple TV’s docuseries “The Dynasty” about the New England Patriots’ run of success was not reviewed kindly on Patriots Football Now. On Tuesday, a pair of New England legends expressed their disappointment as well.

Devin McCourty and Rodney Harrison, who were on five of the six Super Bowl championship teams in New England, both participated in the making of the series. Each sat for hours discussing their time in New England. Both feel perturbed that anything positive spoken was left on the editing room floor.

The two former stars spoke about the series in a conversation on NBC Sports, shared by Pro Football Talk on X.

Duped

“I felt like I got kind of duped,” said McCourty. “I was like, ‘Man, this is going to 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.”

McCourty went on to touch upon other aspects of the series that bothered him.

“I thought 2010 was like a changing of the guard for so many different things with New England. Like, some of the older players were gone, and it was just like every move had to be made right to try to move on. And the only thing they talked about was Aaron Hernandez.”

William Allen

Devin McCourty also told a story of Bill Belichick working to help free William Allen from jail after 28 years.

“Bill (Belichick) was a big reason we helped a guy get released from prison after 28 years,” McCourty explained. “He was one of the first people after I read and told everybody about this story to raise his hand and he said, ‘How do we help?’ He said, ‘I’m willing to sign my name on a letter that goes to the governor.’ And you know the impact of Bill Belichick’s name on anything in Massachusetts.”

McCourty continued, “And I thought that showed so much growth and change of how he saw things outside of football compared to years before. And it was just like, ‘Well, that makes him look good, so we’re not gonna include that.”

The longtime team captain also pointed out that he could have left the team multiple times in free agency but always returned. “There were reasons why,” McCourty noted.

Waste of Time

Rodney Harrison agreed that “The Dynasty” was looking to follow a negative narrative. He was also annoyed at how much time he spent contributing to something that featured one clip of him speaking the entire time.

“I interviewed for five or six hours I was in New York,” Harrison said. “And all they had me saying (in the series) was, ‘F-ck ‘em all. F-ck ‘em all.’ That’s it.”

The series spent a total of five minutes on the back-to-back championship teams in 2003 and 2004 that Harrison played for. But it wasn’t just wasting his time interviewing or skipping over his Super Bowl-winning teams that made Rodney Harrison eventually turn off the series altogether.

“It just seemed so Tom (Brady) and Bill (Belichick)-centric,” Harrison said. “And (Robert) Kraft. I didn’t enjoy it. I stopped. Because it didn’t tell the stories. It was centered around some things that I wasn’t really feeling. And I just stopped watching.”

Bill Belichick’s Portrayal

Harrison took particular umbrage with the way the series portrayed Bill Belichick. Specifically, how it glossed over his many contributions.

“Think about this, he gave me an opportunity, a fifth-round draft choice. He gave Tom Brady an opportunity.” Harrison continued, “He sent out a $100 million quarterback when no one thought it was popular and started Tom Brady. He gives guys who are the underdog an opportunity. No one talks about that. When everybody else is done with a guy, he brings in a Corey Dillon, he brings in a Randy Moss, he brings in a Rodney Harrison. And I just don’t think that he got enough credit, enough respect, enough props, man. This dude is the greatest coach of all time.”

As was the observation of many, Rodney Harrison believes the series let the last several seasons dictate too much of the message from the many years of success.

“Bill (Belichick) was a hell of a coach,” Harrison said. “They act like the last three or four years, because the Patriots struggled, that Bill can’t coach. You give me one game and you give me Bill’s Xs and Os, I’ll take him over anybody. I just didn’t like the way that he was made out. I just don’t think he got enough credit, enough respect, enough props. Man, this dude is the greatest coach of all time.”

Devin McCourty and Rodney Harrison speak for many who lived through the years of the New England Patriots’ success.