Chris Collins (Syndicate X Library) reviews 'The Dynasty' by Jeff Benedict (2020) and its Apple+ docuseries adaptation. He praises Benedict's writing, recommends both book and series, and highlights notable episodes such as the Aaron Hernandez case, leadership contrasts among Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady, and a painful Super Bowl moment for the speaker.
Welcome to the Syndicate X Library. Today I would like to have a conversation about a book that was made into a docu series and which one turned out better.
The book we're talking about today is the Dynasty by Jeff Benedict. This book came out in 2020 and I will just tell you right out of the gate that Jeff Benedict is an American treasure because he's an incredible writer and this is an incredible book. So incredible that they decided to make it into a docu series. If you haven't seen it, it's on Apple Plus. It's incredible. It's well done. The story is fascinating, even though I am a Seahawks fan, which is very painful. In fact, the part of the docu series where they beat the Seahawks at the last minute in the Super Bowl, I was at that Super Bowl. I was there. I turned that off because that was one of the most traumatic events of my life.
In the docu series, some highlights for me, the episode about Hernandez, so he was a tight end that they drafted and ended up being convicted of murder and eventually he committed suicide in jail. But it was very traumatic for the organization of the Patriots to deal with that. For the most part in that episode, the level of ownership was pretty high because the sentiment is, I should have seen it. I should have known. That episode is really well done also, and that's kind of towards the middle. The other highlight in the docuseries for me is the different leadership styles. So you have Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, and he has a leadership style to let people do what they're hired to do. And then you have Bill Belichick, who is a football genius. He also does not seem to let emotions affect him. But you have this balance of he gets results, but he's pretty hard to deal with sometimes. But you can't argue with the fact that when the Patriots get on the field, they are more prepared mentally than most other teams because of his coaching style. Then you have maybe the ultimate leader, which is Tom Brady. His leadership style is in the shadow of Belichick in a lot of ways. And then as it progresses, Tom takes more and more kind of independent moves in different areas outside of the team and inside of the team, which is is only natural, I think, for the amount of success that the Patriots had.
So I'm a fan of performers, consistency systems, mindset that lead to behaviors that create incredible outcomes. And this is a great example of that. The other thing too, that has been an observation I've had whenever I've had a high performing team is from the Outside looking in, people perceive. Perceive it to be something much different than what it is. But from the inside looking out, it's usually an island of misfit toys. Like, in the sense that all of the people that are contributing, they're as flawed as they. They are good at what they do. And you get that sense in this, is that the, the Patriots were the island of misfit toys in a lot of ways, but they had great leadership and they had a common, common goal and a common focus, and they built a culture. And so I would encourage you to read the book and watch the docu series in the sense that they're very different. And the. The one thing for me that was missing from the docu series that, that Jeff does really, really well. In the book, they didn't go into how Kraft kind of became who he is and how he ended up getting passed over to buy the Patriots. And then even when he finally got the deal to buy them, one of the things that helped him become an owner in the NFL was because he owned a TV station and their contract was up. And Kraft is a big part of why the NFL had Sunday Ticket and Fox and all of the different things they did to dramatically raise their revenue. And none of that is really in the docu series. And I understand why, because the way it's done, it really does stand on its own for what it is. But if you're in business, I would definitely recommend that you read the book. You will walk away going, man, Kraft is a gangster. Like, he really is a gangster in the way that he approaches things and does business. And it is not in any way a mistake that he is where he is. And it's very inspirational. He's an American hero, an example of what is possible here in this country and also what is possible when you're loyal to a team in a city. So my verdict is that the book is better than the docu series, but they're both incredible, and I would encourage you to check them both out. If you have any sort of opinion on this, please post it in the comments. What you think, if you've read the book and watched the docu series or if you just watched the docu series, that's it from the Syndicate Library, and I'll see you next time.
