It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

by Seth Wickersham

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED • NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
National Sports Media Association • Book of the Year
Kirkus Reviews • Best Nonfiction of the Year

“[H]onest, sprawling, meticulously reported, and beautifully written." —Chad Finn, Boston Globe
The explosive, long-awaited account of the making of the greatest dynasty in football history—from the acclaimed ESPN reporter who has been there from the very beginning.

Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL’s most dominant team, but also—and by far—the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness—and what were the costs?

In It’s Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the nation’s finest investigative sportswriters, presents the definitive account of the New England Patriots dynasty, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and ruthlessness that powered it. Having covered the team since Tom Brady took over as starting quarterback in 2001, Wickersham draws on an immense range of sources, including previously confidential game plans, scouting reports, and internal studies as well as hundreds of interviews gathered over two decades—with Brady, Bill Belichick, and other players, coaches, and front office personnel—to offer a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the dynasty’s three acts: the initial burst of Super Bowls from 2001 to 2005; the plateau period, 2006 to 2014, stalked by scandal, injury, and near-misses; and the second three Super Bowl victories between 2015 and 2019, which allowed the Patriots to make their claim upon history.

At every step, Wickersham demonstrates just how Belichick and Brady shaped the Patriots and reshaped the entire NFL. We are taken deep into Belichick’s tactical mind, odd work habits, and strained relationships, including his sincere but unspoken love for the players and a near fistfight with a former assistant coach. It is an illuminating depiction of a mastermind, and an organization, dedicated not only to winning but to breaking a league designed to prevent the emergence of a single, unbeatable team.

Yet it is in Wickersham’s portrait of Brady—from his childhood in northern California to his challenging years at the University of Michigan to his astonishing early superstardom in the NFL—that the source of the Patriots’ sheer endurance comes into focus. Even as he navigated an improbable rise to fame, Brady was driven by a totalizing ambition to be great, not as an endpoint, but as an ever-unfolding process. Sustaining greatness, however, came with a price. Wickersham reveals, to an extent no other journalist has, the clashes among the coach, the quarterback, and the owner, Robert Kraft—conflicts that resulted in the team’s best performances but also, eventually, the dissolution of the dynasty itself.

Raucous, unvarnished, and propulsive, It’s Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting, and an unforgettable study of what it takes to reach, and remain at, the summit of human achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631498237
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	404,529
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Seth Wickersham is a senior writer at ESPN. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award and his stories have been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing and The Best American Sports Writing, among other places. He lives in Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Prologue xiii

Part I Nine Points (2001-2006)

1 One of a Kind 3

2 You Want to Leave? Go 'Head! 18

3 Drew's Out, You're In 35

4 I Won't Screw up Again 48

5 Hang Tight 54

6 How Do You Like That? 67

7 Turkey Zero 73

8 No Bridges High Enough to Jump Off 84

9 Can You Imagine? 93

10 Thank You, Peyton 101

11 The Trophy is Coming Back Home 112

12 Every Day But Game Day 122

13 20/20s 140

14 The Sleeper 149

15 Something Very Special 154

16 All You have is Your Name and Reputation 161

Part II The Highest Plateau (2006-2015)

17 Protect the Shield 173

18 Who Does That? 179

19 Remain Inconspicuous 185

20 18-0^* 199

21 Girlie Man Limps Home 211

22 Burn That Game 216

23 Cover-Up 223

24 One Thing I'm Not is Scared 233

25 I'm Not Bill Belichick 246

26 That's a Lot of F-K Yous! 259

27 Alejandro! 267

28 Love in the Time of Belichick 281

29 Fight Song 291

30 The Makeup Call 300

31 Malcolm, Go! 307

Part III Feared Again (2015-2020)

32 I Had to do it for the Fans 319

33 How Did You Get Blood on There? 326

34 Definitely Human 334

35 For Your Mom, Bro 344

36 The Pliability Movement 353

37 You Think Bob Kraft Came after You Hard 362

38 I Don't Want to Play for Bill Anymore 369

39 It's Not Brain Surgery 379

40 Lights Out 385

41 Pleading the Fifth 392

42 Once You Stop, You're Done 398

43 Right, T? 409

44 We're Champs, Man! 414

45 Talk to Mr. Kraft 420

46 Please Stay, Tommy 431

47 The College Kid 435

48 Tompa Bay 440

49 Wartime Profiteer 446

50 I Hope I Play in It 452

Epilogue to the Paperback Edition 467

Acknowledgments 481

Notes on Sources 485

Index 513

Editorial Reviews

"[T]he best book written about the Patriots to date. It encompasses the entirety of the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady dynasty: nine AFC championships and six Super Bowl championships. It delves deeply into the histories of Belichick, Brady, Robert Kraft, and several important figures of the dynasty: Julian Edelman, Josh McDaniels, Malcolm Butler, Peyton Manning, Roger Goodell, Eric Mangini, and many more. The good, great, bad, and worse are covered here, but not in a scandalous way, and not in a way that wastes extra time on extraneous stories. The focus of the book, and the fact that Wickersham has been covering the team and league since the dynasty’s advent, make it special."

2021 Gift Guide Boston.com

"This enthralling behind-the-scenes tale of the New England Patriots is a piece of journalistic excellence . . . Patriots fans will revel in all the little-known backstories, while all football fans and readers seeking astonishing success stories will relish this, too."

Booklist - Robert St. John

"[C]ontains an array of juicy details about Brady’s turbulent final years in New England . . . While those details — Belichick’s clandestine friendship with Roger Goodell, Brady approaching the 49ers at the start of his free agency — are scintillating, they are the garnish on top of a well-constructed narrative that spans the arc of 20 years . . . Wickersham's storytelling is gripping."

WEEI - Alex Reimer

"The book consistently delivers that type of fly-on-the-wall access, taking the reader to seemingly impenetrable places . . . Reporters have breathlessly covered the Patriots over the years, leaving little room for new reveals, but Wickersham advances the ball with anecdotes that unpeel the personalities of the franchise’s significant figures."

Mark Selig

10/01/2021

The last 20 years of pro football history have been dominated by the thorny dynasty of the New England Patriots, headed by the triumvirate of owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady. This history of the team is based on two decades of interviews and research conducted by ESPN.com journalist Wickersham. The author contracted to publish this book whenever Brady or Belichick left the Patriots; in the meantime, he wrote it as a summation of the team and an era. Wickersham strives to reveal the essence of each of the main characters. (Brady, Belichick, and Kraft declined to be interviewed.) Though Brady is the major focus, the book also delves into Kraft's desire for recognition and Belichick's systematic devotion to hard work and hard coaching. Wickersham presents Brady as the ultimate team leader, whose rigorous training regimen put strain on his family, and who grew tired of being underappreciated by his coach. This book covers the era's major events and finds fresh perspectives that make the lengthy volume a joy to read. VERDICT A skilled journalist analyzes the success of the NFL's premier team over the last two decades, in both its laudable and unsavory aspects; will be of interest to all sports fans.—John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ.-Camden Lib., NJ

Library Journal

★ 2021-10-12
A deep dive into the modern New England Patriots, the most successful NFL franchise of the past 20 years.

As a quarterback, Tom Brady has always been known for his public face, one of confidence, optimism, and overall good cheer. There are darker moments, writes ESPN correspondent Wickersham, and numerous episodes where team player Brady showed an overinflated ego. “Fans knew little about his demons and insecurities,” he writes, “and the fact that low-rung staffers—invisible servants—seemed to hold a level of contempt for Brady not only revealed him as a perfectionist who couldn’t handle mistakes, but also as a man keenly aware of the discrepancy in stature.” That discrepancy owed to a long, tortuous relationship with head coach Bill Belichick, emotionally aloof even as Brady was emotionally needy, and of a mindset that held that football players, no matter how brilliant, were mere employees. For all the head-butting, Brady and Belichick crafted a team that, though not without problems, developed an enviable record. Wickersham’s fly-on-the-wall accounts are fascinating, but he’s at his best when he explains, carefully and evenhandedly, how the business of football works. He also serves up the best account of “Deflategate,” the scandal whereby it was revealed that Brady, or at least his handlers, played with a game ball that was outside league specifications. Brady paid for the transgression with public humiliation, and so did Belichick, who traversed two narratives: “One said he was football’s smartest and most prepared coach; the other held that he would cross any line to win.” Brady’s anger that Patriots management didn’t shield him was one of many reasons that he left the team in 2020. As Wickersham suggests, now the narrative will turn to which of the two was most responsible for the Pats’ phenomenal run.

Exemplary sports journalism that examines the front office and dueling egos as much as the gridiron.

Kirkus Reviews

"[A]n honest, sprawling, meticulously reported, and beautifully written portrayal of perhaps the greatest and probably the most unlikely dynasty in modern professional sports . . . [Wickersham] draws richly detailed portraits of Brady, Belichick, the dynasty’s third constant in owner Robert Kraft, and how their personalities and relationships changed through the years . . . It’s Better to Be Feared is the accounting the Patriots dynasty deserves."

Boston Globe - Chad Finn

"Wickersham, with thorough reporting and the experience of covering New England’s twists and turns, manages a noteworthy feat in It’s Better to be Feared—he humanizes Brady, Belichick and the Patriots owner Robert Kraft for outsiders in a way that can be exceedingly difficult . . . Their history is told in parallel with the growth of the N.F.L. itself."

Oskar Garcia

"[A] superlative sports book full of intimate, fly-on-the-wall reporting, savvy insights and deft, page-turning writing. . . . Chapter after chapter, the author takes the reader inside the Patriots’ locker and trainers’ rooms, into coaches’ meetings, into the huddle and onto the line of scrimmage. There’s plenty of eavesdropping on the NFL owners’ contentious meetings with Commissioner Roger Goodell, too. The result is the best picture I’ve ever encountered of what the cutthroat, multibillion-dollar world of NFL football is actually like."

Wall Street Journal - Edward Kosner

"While there is no shortage of books available on the New England Patriots dynasty, Seth Wickersham’s new work may be the best yet... So good that even casual NFL fans will want to check [it] out.... Of the many books written on [Brady and Belichick], it seems that Wickersham delivers the deepest and most insightful portrait of either of them within these pages... Engaging and artfully written, drawing the reader into the events [Wickersham] describes, making them feel as if they are witnessing these meetings and games themselves.... One of the best books on the NFL to appear in recent years."

Fansided - Micah Wimmer