There was plenty to take away from Episodes 5 and 6 of “The Dynasty: New England Patriots,” which are now streaming on Apple+.
Episode 5 zeroes in on the 2008 season that the Patriots played without Tom Brady, while Ep. 6 is one of the wildest of the series. It dives into the rise and fall of Aaron Hernandez, the deeply troubled tight end who was arrested for murdering Odin Lloyd while on the Patriots roster. It begins with New England drafting Hernandez out of Florida, and chronicles his time in Foxborough through the eyes of teammates and executives.
Here are seven takeaways from Friday’s new episodes:
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Patriots knew Hernandez had pre-draft ‘issues’
While Hernandez fell to the fourth round of the 2010 NFL Draft, it wasn’t due to a lack of talent. The tight end had character concerns coming out of the University of Florida and multiple teams said they took him off their draft board entirely. Bill Belichick’s long-time “football research director” Ernie Adams said they knew there was risk in drafting Hernandez, but had no idea the severity.
“We knew that there were issues, but you make a calculation on draft day: Look, we’re getting first-round talent for fourth-round price,” Adams said. “If it doesn’t work out right, we can always cut him.
“We knew he wasn’t the ideal citizen. But did we ever suspect this is a guy who is going to be running around with guns shooting people? No.”
Hernandez asks eerie question to Carter
At the NFL’s rookie symposium in 2010, Hall of Fame wideout Cris Carter was speaking to the group. Carter said he’d done too many of the wrong things while he was with the Eagles early in his career, and that led to Philadelphia parting with him. When he got serious in Minnesota, Carter realized his potential and grew into a perennial Pro Bowler.
During a Q-and-A session, the first question came from Hernandez, who asked Carter how he was able to make those life changes in Minnesota.
“You’ve gotta get your stuff together, man. You’ve gotta stop lying to yourself. I stopped smoking that dope. I stopped doing all the things I was doing,” Carter said. “I started getting my body in shape. I started being able to run all day. I told my old friends, don’t call me!
“This should be — right now — the fork in the road for a lot of y’all to get a lot of your stuff together. Because you’re going to get popped. You’re going to get caught. You’re going to get caught.”
Hernandez asked for trade to West Coast
According to Bob Hohler of the Boston Globe, Hernandez had a conversation with Bill Belichick at the 2013 NFL Combine where he requested to be traded from the Patriots.
“Aaron told him that his girlfriend and his daughter’s safety was in jeopardy,” Holer said. “Belichick asked Hernandez if he wanted help from the security department at the Patriots and Hernandez said no thank you. Instead, he asked Bill Belichick to trade him to a team on the West Coast so he’d get away from New England. Just get away. But Belichick said no to Aaron Hernandez.”
In the episode, Belichick was asked what he did with that information Hernandez relayed.
“It’s an unfortunate situation about Aaron and I don’t have anything to add to it,” Belichick said.
Robert Kraft totally ‘snookered’
A week before Hernandez was charged with murder, speculation began to swirl that the tight end was involved in Lloyd’s killing. When Robert Kraft heard that Hernandez had come to the Gillette Stadium facility to work out, the Patriots owner said he bolted down to the weight room to talk to him.
“I said, ‘Aaron, tell me. Did you do this? Because if you did, I know you must have had some good reason. I’m going to get you the best defense lawyer we can get and I’ll do it at my cost,’” Kraft said. “He looked me right the eye, not blinking or anything, and said, ‘Mr Kraft, I didn’t do that. I was in Rhode Island’ or something. When he said it, I believed him. He actually changed my life and how I look at people because to this day, I can’t believe I got snookered like that.”
Jonathan Kraft made the call to cut him
When Hernandez was arrested on the murder charge, Patriots President Jonathan Kraft said he was the one that put the wheels in motion to cut the tight end because his father and Belichick were both away.
“Aaron was being led out of his house in handcuffs and it was on television everywhere. I just remember thinking whatever warm feelings we might have toward Aaron, it looks like he’s the ultimate bad thing and we can’t have him on our team any longer,” Jonathan Kraft said. “At that time, my dad and Bill were both out of the country, but I felt strongly we couldn’t wait.”
Jonathan Kraft said he phoned Robert Kraft and Belichick to discuss cutting Hernandez, and only two of the three were on the same page initially.
“So I called my dad and he very much agreed. And we called Bill, and Bill, as is his wont, was always more measured,” Jonathan Kraft said. “In the beginning he said, ‘You know, he’s not guilty yet.’ There were competitive issues, too. He didn’t want to have to lose an amazing football player. So Bill’s instinct would be play this (expletive) thing out until the end. I just knew we couldn’t play it out to the end. Not because of how it looked on us, but because we had to set a (expletive) example. I mean, it’s like, this guy’s a murderer!”
Brady wanted to play through ACL tear
While these takeaways have been entirely focused on the Hernandez episode thus far, there were a couple interesting tidbits in Episode 5, too. Following Tom Brady’s ACL tear in the 2008 season opener, he lobbied to keep playing — despite the unlikelihood of it happening.
“I went into Coach Belichick’s office and said, ‘I want to play. I’ll fix my ACL at the end of the year. I can just put a brace on it. I’ll tape it and I’ll just play the whole season,’” Brady said.
Though he tested throwing on the knee after the tear, the training staff shut that idea down in its tracks.
One game Brady would change
Reflecting on the Super Bowl XLII loss to the Giants that derailed New England’s 18-0 season, Brady made it clear that was the defeat that stung more than any other in his 23-year career.
“If there’s one game in history I’d change, it’s that game,” Brady said. “But we can’t change it.”
