Speaker 1: Time now for another episode of Pats from the Past podcast.
Speaker 1: Matt Smith alongside Brian Worrie and we are more than
Speaker 1: pleased today can be joined by one of the true
Speaker 1: greats from NFL Films, their vice president and senior coordinating producer,
Speaker 1: Ken Rogers, who you may know as from behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: is an integral part of Films' historical component and is
Speaker 1: producing such gems as Hard Knocks. And I had the
Speaker 1: pleasure or misfortune, probably from Ken's perspective, of joining him
Speaker 1: and helping out with three Games to Glory many many
Speaker 1: moons ago. That's where I got a chance to meet Ken.
Speaker 1: So full disclosure, have had the privilege of being able
Speaker 1: to sort of is that three Games the Glory one
Speaker 1: or six three at the time, and we've been involved
Speaker 1: in the others since. So I've had a chance a
Speaker 1: sort of tug on Superman's cape and grab onto the
Speaker 1: coattails of Ken Rogers for many years. Ken, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, for being here today.
Speaker 2: It's a true honor. I thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I wanted to win the Super Bowl as a wild
Speaker 3: card team so we could do four Games to Glory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well, can I tell you something I've always
Speaker 4: thought of that films would have the material and we
Speaker 4: would make sure that we would do our best to
Speaker 4: try to buffer or try to enhance whatever great stuff
Speaker 4: films would have.
Speaker 2: Kenn, I simiz, have.
Speaker 5: You copyrighted four games to Glory? Like you have three
Speaker 5: Games to Glory?
Speaker 1: I believe so is the answer. I believe so.
Speaker 5: I would imagine the crafts are way ahead.
Speaker 2: Of the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, they're quite good at that, as well as
Speaker 1: many other things. Kenny. I think people would be interested
Speaker 1: to know, and I think people know who you are,
Speaker 1: maybe don't know necessarily your story. How did you get
Speaker 1: started at films?
Speaker 5: So? I was working in Los Angeles. I had gone
Speaker 5: to film school out there, originally from New Jersey, and
Speaker 5: I had no thought of working in sports, to be honest,
Speaker 5: not a huge sports fan.
Speaker 2: I was a film geek.
Speaker 5: I loved filmmaking, and what I did as a kid
Speaker 5: was just watch movies. I grew up in the era
Speaker 5: where HBO and those type of pay channels had just
Speaker 5: come out, and MTV, of course, to me, was like
Speaker 5: we're like little.
Speaker 2: Movies, these videos. So I wanted to be a filmmaker.
Speaker 5: I was trying to make it in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 5: I visited a friend who was working at NFL Films
Speaker 5: when I came home for Christmas. One Christmas, and this
Speaker 5: was the Christmas of two thousand, right before the changeover,
Speaker 5: and I went to NFL Films to meet him and
Speaker 5: went to the restroom when I was when I arrived,
Speaker 5: and as I walked out of the restroom, I literally
Speaker 5: opened the door and it opened into Steve Sable and
Speaker 5: I almost knocked him over. And I sort of knew
Speaker 5: who Steve Sable was. I'd wrecked you know, Okay, that's
Speaker 5: that guy. I think he's been on TV again. I
Speaker 5: wasn't a big sports fan, and my friend introduced us,
Speaker 5: and Steve started asking me, oh, what are you doing
Speaker 5: out in LA And it turns out if there's one
Speaker 5: thing he loves equally to football, it was it was films.
Speaker 5: And we just started talking about filmmaking, and we just
Speaker 5: started talking about our favorite films.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I was working as.
Speaker 5: An assistant to a lawyer at Hans Zimmer's composing studio Wow,
Speaker 5: and he had just done Gladiator, and so we started
Speaker 5: talking about about Gladiator movies, you know, which led us
Speaker 5: to you know, all kinds of historical recreation movies and
Speaker 5: Ben hur and you know, we just started talking and
Speaker 5: after ten minutes he stopped and he said, you should
Speaker 5: apply here.
Speaker 2: You should work here. And you know there's.
Speaker 5: A lot of interns and kids will ask me, you know,
Speaker 5: how can I work at NFL Films? I say, look,
Speaker 5: all I know is how I ended up working at
Speaker 5: the NFL Films. I had the perfect amount of full
Speaker 5: bladder that it timed out perfectly that I opened the
Speaker 5: door onto Steve Sable And that's how life is.
Speaker 2: You just I have no idea how it happened, because.
Speaker 5: I ended up applying and he became a great friend
Speaker 5: and mentor, and it turned out that making football movies
Speaker 5: fit my personality and who I am better than probably
Speaker 5: anything I would have found in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: What an unbelievable story. I mean, you talk to people kids,
Speaker 1: as you said, interns, Hey, how do I get into
Speaker 1: a job. You opened the bathroom door onto the founder
Speaker 1: of NFL Films, and the rest for Ken Rogers and
Speaker 1: his family is history. I mean that really is. You
Speaker 1: talk about making the most of a ten minute situations,
Speaker 1: which I was going to ask you, what is your
Speaker 1: favorite film?
Speaker 2: Oh geez.
Speaker 1: Gosh, I'm talking about, you know, your LA career. I
Speaker 1: want to make the next great Oscar winning drama. You know,
Speaker 1: So what is your favorite?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 5: You know, it changes all the time, obviously because there's
Speaker 5: so many.
Speaker 2: But the film I've been thinking about a lot right.
Speaker 5: Now is called The Bad and the Beautiful, which is
Speaker 5: a great old film about the film industry actually, and
Speaker 5: I've been thinking about it a lot recently because there's
Speaker 5: a great line in it where a producer is yelling
Speaker 5: at a director that they don't know what they're doing
Speaker 5: in the scene, and the director says to the producer,
Speaker 5: you know what you have to do to get this
Speaker 5: scene exactly the way you want it. You have to
Speaker 5: direct it yourself, because the director just can't stand the
Speaker 5: producer looking over his shoulder. And it reminded me how
Speaker 5: our culture at NFL Films is the exact opposite that
Speaker 5: we are. We are given such freedom to make our
Speaker 5: stories the way we want to tell them. And when
Speaker 5: I grew up watching those movie, those Hollywood movies about Hollywood,
Speaker 5: you know, I always thought I want I wanted the power.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be the Hollywood producer, like the producer
Speaker 5: in Bad and the Beautiful, and I found out that
Speaker 5: being in a company where there is no power structure,
Speaker 5: that Steve Sable saw me as an equal. And I
Speaker 5: now really try to see everyone from the lowest person
Speaker 5: on the ladder all the way up to my boss's
Speaker 5: boss as equals. That's how That's how I want to work,
Speaker 5: and that's how I think the best films are made.
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of trust for everybody in the
Speaker 5: business in our company. And I've been thinking about that
Speaker 5: film a lot and it's become one of my favorites
Speaker 5: in recent months.
Speaker 1: So as a parent, then, and I'm sure you're going
Speaker 1: to tell me that this is cliched, which is fine,
Speaker 1: But did you think I did a solid job parenting
Speaker 1: where I sat down with So I have nineteen year
Speaker 1: old twins, and I think you know, I sat down
Speaker 1: with my son last week and we watched The Godfather
Speaker 1: Part one, which would be my favorite movie. Is that
Speaker 1: good parenting or poor parenting from your perspective.
Speaker 5: Well, it's poor if it's the first time you've done that.
Speaker 1: Agree with that. I agree with that.
Speaker 3: I don't even know if I could get my kids
Speaker 3: to sit down and watch it, uh.
Speaker 5: Three hours I mean, you got you know, you gotta
Speaker 5: do that by age eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, them down for it and I have failed. That's
Speaker 1: a fair shout. But so I'm a little late to
Speaker 1: the game because he was told by his friends at
Speaker 1: his first semester college that Goodfellows was the best film.
Speaker 1: We watch Goodfellows. I also love Fellaws but loved it,
Speaker 1: and I said, now, as great as Goodfellas is, let's
Speaker 1: watch the real McCoy. Let's watch the real McCoy. So
Speaker 1: now he wants to see two.
Speaker 5: And oh look, that's the thing, like, I can never
Speaker 5: judge my favorite film. It's it's impossible.
Speaker 1: I have a Godfather question though, whatever week it is, right.
Speaker 5: Can you Godfather's Godfather is a better film than The
Speaker 5: Bad and the Beautiful? But right now, if I had
Speaker 5: to watch one, I love The Bad and Beautiful favorite
Speaker 5: film right now.
Speaker 3: So I want your opinion on this. Then Godfather Part
Speaker 3: Part three?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it bad compared to one and two or bad?
Speaker 5: I think it's it's too maligned for it's over maligned
Speaker 5: for what it is. It's bad compared to one and two,
Speaker 5: but it is not as bad as people I think
Speaker 5: prefer to remember it because it's fun to bash failures.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what American culture does. We raise, we
Speaker 5: raise speaking of the Patriots, we raise heroes up and
Speaker 5: then there are parts of society that just love to
Speaker 5: see them fail. And you can see that across NFL fandom.
Speaker 2: You know, in two.
Speaker 5: Thousand and one, the country love the Patriots.
Speaker 2: And every fans.
Speaker 5: Of every fan base across the country couldn't wait. God
Speaker 5: the Patriots, I hope they win, and the heroes certainly
Speaker 5: become the people you want to see fail, and that
Speaker 5: that becomes the case in all of culture. And I
Speaker 5: think movie franchises are the same way. People they've had
Speaker 5: enough success, like, oh, yes, the third one sucked and
Speaker 5: you hate watch it and you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sucked. That's right, it sucked.
Speaker 5: You know, like we love people to succeed, and then
Speaker 5: we as America, Oh yeah, they love to tear them down.
Speaker 2: We're terrible. We're terrible people.
Speaker 3: It's funny because after that two thousand and one Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: I was having a phone conversation that off season with
Speaker 3: Tom Brady's father and we were talking about his contract
Speaker 3: situation and whatnot. And because I was working for Patriots
Speaker 3: Football Weekly at the time, and he uh.
Speaker 1: He couldn't believe that.
Speaker 3: Like, people were being so critical of Brady in the media,
Speaker 3: and I said, mister Brady, you gotta understand.
Speaker 1: They build you up so they can tear you down.
Speaker 3: Little did I know that he would reach a point
Speaker 3: where it's really tough to tear them down. But back
Speaker 3: at that point, he was certainly with just won Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: you know, a mere mortal.
Speaker 1: So, Kenny, if you started in two thousand, so you
Speaker 1: literally were in on the ground floor on this.
Speaker 5: So oh I mean, I mean, let me tell you
Speaker 5: that the happenstance, So the happenstance of running in the
Speaker 5: Steve Sable then compounds by the fact that I'm brand
Speaker 5: new and my first season is the two thousand and
Speaker 5: one season, and I start the season and I'm you know,
Speaker 5: I'm so green. I've never made football movies. I don't
Speaker 5: know that much about football. And after nine to eleven,
Speaker 5: a wonderful producer at NFL Film, Suzanne Morgan, had been
Speaker 5: making the Patriots highlight films for years and she had
Speaker 5: decided after nine to eleven, you know, I want to
Speaker 5: work part time and I want to spend more time
Speaker 5: with my daughters, and like a lot of people. It
Speaker 5: was quite, you know, quite the life changing event for her,
Speaker 5: and so she switched to more part time work. So
Speaker 5: as the newcomer, Steve Sable came to me and said, listen,
Speaker 5: every team gets assigned a producer to follow the team
Speaker 5: all season long and do their highlight film at the
Speaker 5: end of the season. And Suzanne Morgan has given up
Speaker 5: her team, and we're going to give you a highlight film.
Speaker 5: But since you're new, I'm sorry, you're getting the worst
Speaker 5: team in the league, the two thousand and one Patriots.
Speaker 5: And I thought, oh crap, my career is done. Before
Speaker 5: I started, I get this team. You know, I read
Speaker 5: all the previews. I'm in trouble. So literally my first
Speaker 5: Patriots game that I watched was against the Jets in
Speaker 5: Week two, because I have to start really paying attention.
Speaker 5: This is the team I'm going to be be telling
Speaker 5: stories about. And I say, well, you know, I don't
Speaker 5: have much with this team, but I got I got
Speaker 5: a quarterback. You know, they got a good quarterback, Drew Blets.
Speaker 5: Oh Bledsoe's down, you know.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, oh geez.
Speaker 5: And that was the start of my, you know, NFL
Speaker 5: film's career.
Speaker 2: And I got to do the highlight film that.
Speaker 5: Year of a Super Bowl team, and that caught caught
Speaker 5: the eye of Steve Sable even more. And I did,
Speaker 5: I guess a pretty good job, I guess, And you
Speaker 5: know I got to work my way up. And I
Speaker 5: owe as much as I owe Steve. I owe Robert
Speaker 5: Craft and Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and that O
Speaker 5: one team. You know, like I, I maybe wouldn't have
Speaker 5: caught the eye of Steve and worked my way up
Speaker 5: the ladder.
Speaker 2: If I wouldn't.
Speaker 5: Have caught on with the New England Patriots in two
Speaker 5: thousand and one. So everything I've achieved is full of happenstance.
Speaker 1: Well, I tell you what I mean. There's a long list,
Speaker 1: including the two people who are sitting here talking with you,
Speaker 1: who they owe their careers to those three people, and
Speaker 1: they they they've employed a lot of people and a
Speaker 1: lot of families have been have had a living made
Speaker 1: because of those three people. You forgot one, and I'm
Speaker 1: interested in this one. Have you had a subsequent conversation
Speaker 1: with Suzanne Morgan about the happenstance and you said, hey, wow,
Speaker 1: how did they work out here? And did she say
Speaker 1: to you I'm really happy with my family. Congratulations on
Speaker 1: riding the Patriots trained for the last two decades.
Speaker 5: You know what's interesting is we had that talk after
Speaker 5: two thousand and four and it was like, can you
Speaker 5: believe you know this turned out? And I'm sure as
Speaker 5: you as you've experienced too, and anyone who's been on
Speaker 5: this ride, at the end of two thousand and four,
Speaker 5: you thought, gosh, what a run like that? That that'll
Speaker 5: never happen again, and you know it's it's over now,
Speaker 5: But you know, I mean, what a run that was
Speaker 5: that that four years whoof and who would have ever
Speaker 5: thought that it would continue like it like it has.
Speaker 5: So I haven't spoken whether recently.
Speaker 2: I almost I don't. I don't want to.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, like I'm sorry I took the team right, like,
Speaker 5: I mean, that would have been really fun to be
Speaker 5: because I've had such great experience and I'm sure you
Speaker 5: know she's extremely thrilled with her life.
Speaker 2: I surely hope so.
Speaker 5: But you know, I got to have some incredible experiences
Speaker 5: that sure she would have been able to have. And
Speaker 5: I have a little bit of guilt. I mean, sure
Speaker 5: I got lucky.
Speaker 2: I got lucky.
Speaker 3: Well, so I started here in nineteen ninety seven, right
Speaker 3: after the team was in Super Bowl thirty one and
Speaker 3: then went ten and six, nine and seven, eight and eight,
Speaker 3: five and eleven. I thought I was uh on the
Speaker 3: on the downtrain, and then all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 3: it turned around.
Speaker 1: And it truly has been.
Speaker 3: I mean, seventeen straight seasons with ten or more wins
Speaker 3: just snapped with last week's lost to the Rams. It's
Speaker 3: been an incredible run. And and so you you obviously
Speaker 3: have some behind the scenes viewpoints of it that even
Speaker 3: we don't have working here.
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you say? What would you say?
Speaker 3: Are some of those those moments where you would you know,
Speaker 3: you tell your kids about.
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm not allowed to tell my kids. I'm not
Speaker 5: allowed to tell anybody about the things I've seen.
Speaker 2: Kid me. That's part of.
Speaker 1: That's why where he is, that's right, that's right in
Speaker 1: this building.
Speaker 2: If he didn't, yeah, kidd me. That's part of working
Speaker 2: for NFL Films.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I I've spoken even with people at the Patriots who
Speaker 5: work there, including including you two, who say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 5: you were you were in that meeting. You know, you
Speaker 5: shot you filmed that meeting. You know, we've never even
Speaker 5: seen that meeting. You know, we don't know what happens
Speaker 5: in that meeting. Or you know, they watch Hard Knocks
Speaker 5: that I produce on a on a yearly basis and
Speaker 5: they say, God, we've never seen that on our team.
Speaker 5: You know, no one's allowed in those sort of situations.
Speaker 5: And that's that's really a it's a really fun part
Speaker 5: of being part of NFL films, and that's it's part
Speaker 5: of our history is you know, since nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 5: to celebrate and preserve the history of the NFL and
Speaker 5: the trust that that we have of that that secrecy
Speaker 5: of Listen, we're going to not break the the trust
Speaker 5: that's given when it comes to football secrets. You know,
Speaker 5: of course we're there to tell a story, but we're
Speaker 5: not going to reveal what play you're running, and we're
Speaker 5: going to not show what your game plan is because
Speaker 5: that's all the coaches care about. All this secrecy that
Speaker 5: you hear about and all the it's all about competitive reasons.
Speaker 5: They're not worried about what they look like. These these
Speaker 5: guys are impervious at this point to what people think
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 2: Sony that that forget it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but That's the essence, and I think that that's
Speaker 1: what Patriot fans would find the most fascinating is at
Speaker 1: your core and at your company's core, your mission statement
Speaker 1: or your values that you have, it's a simple one word,
Speaker 1: it's trust. With trust, it allows you to do some
Speaker 1: of the things and the projects that keep you going.
Speaker 1: As somebody who was in Hollywood and wanted to make
Speaker 1: the next great Oscar winning film. Because of trust and
Speaker 1: because of your brand, you're allowed in rooms, in buildings
Speaker 1: and in situations that you wouldn't be able to get
Speaker 1: in without that trust. Is that a fair statement to say?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And it's not.
Speaker 5: I think I've been an okay carrier of that trust.
Speaker 2: But the trust goes back to the Sable family.
Speaker 5: I mean, it really does go back to Steve, and
Speaker 5: I give the credit all goes to Steve. And I
Speaker 5: can tell you that when Coach Belichick was a young coach,
Speaker 5: when Robert Craft was in the stands, when Tom Brady
Speaker 5: was a kid, they knew of Steve Sable.
Speaker 2: They trusted Steve Sable already as the.
Speaker 5: Voice of NFL history, and then once they met them
Speaker 5: met him, they trusted him even more. You know, Coach
Speaker 5: Belichick and Steve Sable used to sit together at owners meetings,
Speaker 5: you know, from the eighties forward and got to know
Speaker 5: each other. And of course you trust someone who has
Speaker 5: never broken that trust and had the trust going back
Speaker 5: of all coaches back to Vince Lombardi. I mean, you
Speaker 5: know the stories of the people who have trusted Steve
Speaker 5: Sable go back to Lombardi. And the first major film
Speaker 5: we made was on Vince Lombardi, where we have on film,
Speaker 5: you know, Vince lifting weights early in the morning, and
Speaker 5: Vince going to church and you know him having meetings
Speaker 5: and parties at his house after a win, things that
Speaker 5: you'd never imagine we have. No we shot that stuff.
Speaker 5: And when you say to a coach, no, no, we
Speaker 5: have that with Lombardi, they say, oh, well, I guess,
Speaker 5: I guess if he trusted you, then I can trust you.
Speaker 5: And it has a has an effect that, hey, we're
Speaker 5: not going to let the other coaches watch your your
Speaker 5: ex'es and o's, and uh, that's because we are part
Speaker 5: of the NFL and we're If the trust wasn't there,
Speaker 5: that competitive balance is going to stay equal.
Speaker 2: We would never be.
Speaker 5: Allowed in anywhere because, as I said, they don't care
Speaker 5: what you think of them as people. They just they
Speaker 5: don't want the other coaches to know one single diagram
Speaker 5: on the on the board on the whiteboard that they
Speaker 5: that is that is sacricy to coaches, is the actual football.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you're dealing with here, Ken is
Speaker 1: now maybe less so in two thousand when you started,
Speaker 1: but certainly over the last ten or fifteen years, is
Speaker 1: we are an instant gratification society. And so whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you have and you've got nothing but some
Speaker 1: of the greatest stuff ever, is we've got to get
Speaker 1: this out there. We've got to put this out there,
Speaker 1: we've got to deliver this, we've got to put it
Speaker 1: on a platform. We need to broadcast us whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And the fact that you were able to say to coaches, owners,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, you know what, we need this because
Speaker 1: at some point in time that story is going to
Speaker 1: need to be told. And you can trust us that
Speaker 1: this is going to stay in our vault and it
Speaker 1: won't come out until the appropriate time or when you
Speaker 1: say it like that's a huge deal. That goes against
Speaker 1: the grain of what content people want today now, which
Speaker 1: is instant clicks, instant gratification. Give it to me now,
Speaker 1: short attention span. They don't have the wherewithal to think about, Hey,
Speaker 1: this might be valuable five years down the road, ten
Speaker 1: years down the road, twenty years down the road. And
Speaker 1: that's a big part of what you guys do, isn't
Speaker 1: it It is.
Speaker 5: I mean, everyone points to the example now of the
Speaker 5: Last Dance and how that footage was captured at the
Speaker 5: time and was used decades later. That's sort of what
Speaker 5: I planned on doing in two thousand and nine when
Speaker 5: I followed the team, in particular coach Belichick when he
Speaker 5: became the first coach in NFL history to wear a
Speaker 5: wire for every single game during an entire season. And
Speaker 5: then you know, I was there in Foxborough for most
Speaker 5: of the season, shooting meetings and behind the scenes, you know,
Speaker 5: pretty much every day that season. The pitch there was
Speaker 5: it was the fiftieth season of the Patriots, and really
Speaker 5: the pitch was to mister Craft, who was the person
Speaker 5: to bless the project that history is important, not just
Speaker 5: for the National Football League because we want to preserve
Speaker 5: our history, but for the Patriots to preserve history. And
Speaker 5: obviously at that point in two thousand and nine, Brady
Speaker 5: and Belichick and this team were already going down in.
Speaker 2: The history books.
Speaker 5: Let's capture how this team works, let's capture how this
Speaker 5: coach works. And the pitch was, we'll capture it. And
Speaker 5: I have no idea what we're going to do with it.
Speaker 5: I don't know what it's for. You know, well, well,
Speaker 5: where's it going to air? I have no idea, And
Speaker 5: so I spent an entire season filming a project with
Speaker 5: no idea what would happen with it? And it was
Speaker 5: crushing for me, you know, the loss to the Ravens
Speaker 5: in the playoffs. I literally had so much invested in
Speaker 5: this team and this project.
Speaker 2: I mean I cried on the field.
Speaker 1: I remember talking to you when you were driving away
Speaker 1: that day and how devastated you were because you're sitting there, going,
Speaker 1: I've got this and now I don't have an ending.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're going to do, and just
Speaker 1: the pain in your voice. I remember you calling me
Speaker 1: and how upset you were. I mean, imagine Ray Rice
Speaker 1: went yards on the first place exactly, imagine sitting on
Speaker 1: that treasure trove at that point in time. But that's
Speaker 1: what makes you great and that company great, Ken is
Speaker 1: you figured it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then two years later, we at the NFL
Speaker 5: decided we're going to launch this new show, a Football Life,
Speaker 5: and it was thought, you know, you know, what would
Speaker 5: be a way to launch this show and make it
Speaker 5: special is to is to make a two part premiere
Speaker 5: the very first episode of this new series of Football Life,
Speaker 5: which is now, you know, just a stalwart of NFL
Speaker 5: network programming about Coach Belichick and that oh nine season.
Speaker 2: And it's two.
Speaker 5: Seasons later, but who really cares because this isn't about
Speaker 5: the two thousand and nine season.
Speaker 2: This is about Coach Belichick and who he is.
Speaker 5: And I mean it turned out to be I think,
Speaker 5: extremely intriguing for anyone who is remotely interested in football
Speaker 5: to see how the very best do their job.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna ask you a
Speaker 1: question here amongst Patriot Hanks. So that's a it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a niche category here. I have an
Speaker 1: opinion on this fairly. I mean research, there's no data
Speaker 1: behind it. What's the scene are the two films that
Speaker 1: people come back to more and more from an instance
Speaker 1: where they remember it and eleven twelve years down the
Speaker 1: road they point to and they look at Bill and
Speaker 1: they go, do you remember that scene from A Football Life?
Speaker 1: And they reference it. I can tell you what. I
Speaker 1: know what my opinion is. I have to football, but
Speaker 1: I want to know if what your opinion is of
Speaker 1: it ken as a geez.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there's different ones for different situations.
Speaker 1: I know the.
Speaker 5: I mean, I get comments on not being able to
Speaker 5: fix not being able to set the.
Speaker 2: Time on his radio ding ding ding.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 5: People go nuts for that because they're like, yeah, he's
Speaker 5: such a genius, but he can't set the time on
Speaker 5: his on his car radio. And to me, that was
Speaker 5: something that I knew when I captured it was going
Speaker 5: to be in the film because I thought, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's like you see in the magazines, stars are just
Speaker 5: like us, right, like, yeah, this is I knew that
Speaker 5: coach is just a regular guy who's a genius at football.
Speaker 2: He's proven a hundred different ways that he's just a
Speaker 2: regular guy. But I've been around it a lot.
Speaker 5: This was just this real quick slice that was so
Speaker 5: clear to show, Okay, here he's fallible, he's human, and
Speaker 5: he's okay with it. Like he's not who you think
Speaker 5: he is. He's more nuanced. There is no black and
Speaker 5: white in life. Stop trying to make everything black and white.
Speaker 5: And to me, that's what's fascinating about filmmaking is being
Speaker 5: able to blow up the black and white and show
Speaker 5: someone to be as complicated as we all are.
Speaker 2: And I love that scene.
Speaker 3: Well, my two from the film are as someone who
Speaker 3: covered the team, right, You very rarely get a glance
Speaker 3: as to Bill's actual opinion on something, So it would
Speaker 3: be when one on the sideline with Brady and New
Speaker 3: Orleans when he says, I can't get this team to
Speaker 3: play the way it needs to play, so you're shaking
Speaker 3: your head.
Speaker 1: And two did you agree with him, Kenny?
Speaker 2: I hear that brought up?
Speaker 3: Okay well, And the second one is in just a
Speaker 3: staff meeting when he says if they take away Moss
Speaker 3: and Welker, we're screwed, or something to that effect, and
Speaker 3: you're like, see he does know, of course he knows, he.
Speaker 1: Just doesn't toss.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, see those two are brought up all the time
Speaker 5: by critics of the team when things are going bad.
Speaker 2: I hear those as proof that.
Speaker 5: Things can go wrong in New England, Like, ah, well,
Speaker 5: remember when he did the same thing in nine when
Speaker 5: things were going bad.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing as nine.
Speaker 5: You know that. It's always used as in my mind,
Speaker 5: as a way to prove that fallibility in a.
Speaker 2: Gotcha way, in a in a coaching way, like he's
Speaker 2: not a genius.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it like that. But I mean, Kenny, like,
Speaker 1: how about that?
Speaker 2: How about here?
Speaker 5: That is not a that's usually not done in A
Speaker 5: that's an interesting thing that's usually done in a He's
Speaker 5: a derogatory. Yeah, he's occurred to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but how about this? So ken okay, as a
Speaker 1: kid who was in LA going to film school and
Speaker 1: wanted to direct the next great feature film, you have
Speaker 1: your own. He's sleeping with the fishes. It's just a
Speaker 1: different line. It's I couldn't get him to play that way.
Speaker 1: And if you take a Welker and loss Away were screwed.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that there are people in New
Speaker 1: England who can recount those scenes and speak about those
Speaker 1: things and recite it chapter and verse. There's an impact
Speaker 1: that you made on a lot of people with those things.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, Look, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: Another another big one from another project you guys just
Speaker 5: featured again, which is the legendary pink stripes.
Speaker 3: You know it is. I have a question for you
Speaker 3: because I I remember talking to Steve Sable back in
Speaker 3: probably five and he said to me, I was writing
Speaker 3: a feature story about the Patriots' success and just for
Speaker 3: our yearbook actually, and he said to me, Paul Brown
Speaker 3: brought the classroom to football, Bill Belichick brought the corporate
Speaker 3: boardroom to football. Is that something that you would agree
Speaker 3: with and maybe you have experienced from your perspective.
Speaker 5: That's that's a great point because the modern NFL.
Speaker 2: Head coach.
Speaker 5: Requires a leadership style that goes so far beyond and.
Speaker 2: Coaching, and I.
Speaker 5: Think that's why a lot of really great coaches.
Speaker 2: Can not succeed as a head coach. Being a head
Speaker 2: coach these days is being I mean, it's being a CEO.
Speaker 5: It's being it's being the president of a company, of
Speaker 5: a ship that is is operating on so many different
Speaker 5: levels outside of the football field, with so many departments
Speaker 5: interconnected in ways that one person has to manage so
Speaker 5: that all people are rowing the same direction. That if
Speaker 5: you are an expert at one thing.
Speaker 2: But don't know how to.
Speaker 5: Manage people and manage the structure and organization of people,
Speaker 5: it won't matter how good of a football guy you are.
Speaker 5: And that's where coachs as a thinker has brought the boardroom,
Speaker 5: and to his credit, where Robert Craft and the Craft
Speaker 5: family have given Coach Belichick the the support and structure
Speaker 5: to put in the place the structures that he needs
Speaker 5: to run the football operations the way he needs. Because
Speaker 5: it's completely different than it was even ten years before
Speaker 5: Coach Belichick took over. Things have become I mean, this
Speaker 5: is this is no longer a sport, right, this is
Speaker 5: a business.
Speaker 1: This is it is.
Speaker 5: I mean, it is long past a pastime where you
Speaker 5: sort of enjoy playing football on Sunday. It's about winning,
Speaker 5: and it's about winning is about multiple things past just winning.
Speaker 5: You're thinking about winning today, You're thinking about winning tomorrow
Speaker 5: and on Sunday and in the draft and in the
Speaker 5: future and five years from now. I mean, is everything
Speaker 5: is happening all at once and that's very corporate like
Speaker 5: instead of I think maybe in the eighties it was Okay,
Speaker 5: what are we going to do next week?
Speaker 2: And that's as far as you thought, Kenny.
Speaker 1: Was there a time when you met Coach Belichick were that,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, this is the CEO. Now I see this.
Speaker 1: Do you remember an incident where that became crystal clear
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I remember when we were trying to set up the
Speaker 5: shoot in Nantucket for what became the football Life. We
Speaker 5: were trying to figure out when I would go out
Speaker 5: to Nantucket.
Speaker 2: And he knew what day I should come out. It
Speaker 2: was in July.
Speaker 5: That I should come out, and he told me that
Speaker 5: day and I think March or April.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I.
Speaker 5: Mean yeah whenever. He said no, it's going to be
Speaker 5: that day. I said, you know the day already, and
Speaker 5: he said, ken.
Speaker 2: Every year.
Speaker 5: Is structured the same way. If you give me the
Speaker 5: day and the time of any day in a calendar year,
Speaker 5: I can tell you what I will be doing because
Speaker 5: football has that calendar structure, and I have days off
Speaker 5: that I don't know what I'll be doing where I'm
Speaker 5: away from football, but I know in general that I'll
Speaker 5: be doing scouting or I'll be on Nantucket and available
Speaker 5: to do things. But if you say it's a September
Speaker 5: Tuesday at three o'clock, I know what I'm doing at
Speaker 5: three o'clock on a September Tuesday. If you say it's
Speaker 5: a March Thursday at six pm. I can tell you
Speaker 5: what I'm doing on that Thursday at six pm. And
Speaker 5: I realized, Wow, that's a level of organization that I've
Speaker 5: never heard anyone have in their life.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So I have another I have another line for you,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna that actually comes from I think it
Speaker 3: was just a sound effects feature on Coach Belichick, and
Speaker 3: it's him on the practice field and he's talking to
Speaker 3: Marque's Hill about jumping off sides on the goal line.
Speaker 3: So he's standing there and he says to Marquis Hill,
Speaker 3: you know if they jump off sides, you know what's
Speaker 3: the penalty. And Marquise looks at him like he doesn't
Speaker 3: get like, he's like it's a trick question, and he
Speaker 3: says it's about an inch. He goes, but if you
Speaker 3: jump off side, it's five yards and they're off the
Speaker 3: goal line.
Speaker 1: So fast forward.
Speaker 3: I'm in the stands at Super Bowl forty nine and
Speaker 3: Malcolm Butler makes the interception and falls forward out of
Speaker 3: the end zone and I see Bill and Tom talking
Speaker 3: and I said, because of that line from that he
Speaker 3: said to Marquis Hill, I said, they're going to get
Speaker 3: up to jump here. That's what they're gonna that's what
Speaker 3: they're talking about right now. They're going to get the
Speaker 3: defense to jump and lo and behold they hard count
Speaker 3: him and and they're off the goal line.
Speaker 1: And I remember it because because the films.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I mean there everyone says about doing your
Speaker 5: job as being the you know, the catchphrase, but there
Speaker 5: are so many and situations is something that comes up
Speaker 5: over and over and over in his training camp wires.
Speaker 5: I mean that that's training for situations instead of.
Speaker 2: What what they want to do. It has redefined, in
Speaker 2: my mind, the NFL.
Speaker 5: I think before the success of the Patriots, I think
Speaker 5: it's kind of obvious. But before the success of the Patriots,
Speaker 5: and still today, some teams say, hey, we're gonna be
Speaker 5: great at what we do and make the other team
Speaker 5: stop us. And of course the Patriots say, we're gonna
Speaker 5: be able to do everything and adapt to whatever we
Speaker 5: have to do to win. And some teams say, well,
Speaker 5: this is our style of football and we're gonna win
Speaker 5: or lose play in this way, and and and the
Speaker 5: Patriots are just.
Speaker 2: Adaptable all the time.
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, the way, the way the
Speaker 5: NFL is that is the copycat league. I think it's
Speaker 5: obviously spread throughout the league, and I think it'll continue
Speaker 5: to spread because the game has gotten a lot more
Speaker 5: complicated because people have been trying to keep up with
Speaker 5: Coach Belichick and the Patriot Way now.
Speaker 3: Ken One of the other things that I think Bill
Speaker 3: sort of changed the game a little bit was the
Speaker 3: salary cap. When he got here, it was kind of
Speaker 3: that forty nine Ers Cowboys model, where you even the Ravens.
Speaker 3: In two thousand, the Jaguars made a run where they,
Speaker 3: you know, they build it up, build it up, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, you're gonna be thirty five
Speaker 3: million dollars over the cap, and so you have to
Speaker 3: cut it down.
Speaker 1: And so you sign all these star players knowing that
Speaker 1: in three years they're.
Speaker 3: All gonna be gone because you're gonna have to cut
Speaker 3: them because salary cap reasons.
Speaker 1: And Bill kind of changed that. I felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember him using the term middle class.
Speaker 3: We have to bring a middle class to the roster
Speaker 3: and build depth, you know, so you can maintain success
Speaker 3: through injuries, and that sort of thing. Feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of the Patriot way also changed the way teams
Speaker 3: look at the salary.
Speaker 2: Cap, I think. I think so.
Speaker 5: I think the it almost brought it back to to
Speaker 5: the way it was. I think maybe with the Giants,
Speaker 5: you know, the Giants had, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 5: solid players. I think that he got to work with
Speaker 5: as a as a coordinator, and those players stayed there.
Speaker 5: You know, he built he was him coach Parcels were
Speaker 5: able to build around those players and and win multiple championships.
Speaker 2: I think that the.
Speaker 5: The not going all in for one championship was definitely
Speaker 5: a sea change. And then the additional sea change on
Speaker 5: top of that of of of not just going for
Speaker 5: one championship but multiple was going not just for one
Speaker 5: decade or one rip of championships.
Speaker 2: But going for.
Speaker 5: An infinite amount of time, of being able to do this,
Speaker 5: of making it a culture rather than that first three years,
Speaker 5: because I think at first everybody thought, wow, that was
Speaker 5: really brilliant what he did that first couple of years
Speaker 5: with the salary cap. To remake that team in two
Speaker 5: thousand into the team that won three Super Bowls, that
Speaker 5: he redefined what you do with the salary cap.
Speaker 2: But then to do it again for the.
Speaker 5: End of the Oughts, for the twenty seventeam and reinvent
Speaker 5: the team over and over and over again. The eleven team,
Speaker 5: you know, then to win three more Super Bowls after that,
Speaker 5: go to another one. It just kept going and I
Speaker 5: think will continue to keep going in a way that
Speaker 5: I don't know how if you're any other franchise, you
Speaker 5: don't say, I don't care what we were doing, We're
Speaker 5: gonna do it this way. It has totally redefined how
Speaker 5: you approach spending and how you go about it. Now
Speaker 5: it has to be paired with an owner who supports
Speaker 5: and gets it and understands it, and it has to
Speaker 5: be paired with good coaching and those two things that
Speaker 5: are present in New England. And I think other teams,
Speaker 5: some of them will succeed at copying it and some
Speaker 5: will not.
Speaker 1: You mentioned other franchises, Ken, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: I'm speaking for myself here. You have such a deep
Speaker 1: association with the Patriots. But it's not like I'm the
Speaker 1: only one who knows that. There's everybody in the league
Speaker 1: knows that You're at owners meetings in March every single year.
Speaker 1: You're pitching teams. Hey, we want you guys to do
Speaker 1: hard knocks, or you're pitching other projects and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Have you run into situations with other clubs where your
Speaker 1: association with the Patriots, your closeness to Bill and the
Speaker 1: ability that you've had to get Bill to do, or
Speaker 1: the things where there's a eyebrow raised when you're asking
Speaker 1: to do different projects, or is the door wow? If
Speaker 1: he could get Belichick to do this, or if he
Speaker 1: was able to do those kinds of things with the Patriots,
Speaker 1: then we want him to work with our team as well.
Speaker 1: We would like him to tell our story because he
Speaker 1: was able to do it with the Patriots.
Speaker 5: Well, it's funny. Here's the answer. The perception is that
Speaker 5: the Patriots will do nothing with NFL films. So the
Speaker 5: first thing that I'm always told when I pitch an
Speaker 5: access project Hard Knocks, which I've been doing for twelve
Speaker 5: years now, or anyone or any other sort of access project,
Speaker 5: is why don't you ask Belichick to do it? Why
Speaker 5: don't you Yeah, when Belichick does it, I'll do it.
Speaker 5: And I say, well, he was the first coach to
Speaker 5: wear a wire for every single game of an entire season.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to do that, we'll do that.
Speaker 5: Instead of Hard Knocks. Four weeks in in the middle
Speaker 5: of August when the games don't count like it. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you'd like to commit to an entire season where
Speaker 5: the games really matter, we'll do that. Or you could
Speaker 5: just let us come in for the preseason for hard knocks,
Speaker 5: And they sort of realized that, Yeah, coach has done more.
Speaker 5: Coach Belichick has done more and given more access to
Speaker 5: the National Football League than any coach has certainly from
Speaker 5: NFL film standpoint. And he's the best coach that we've
Speaker 5: ever covered. So those two things combined make him, you know,
Speaker 5: our he's our leading man, he's our Robert de Niro
Speaker 5: and godfather. I mean it, it'd be one thing if
Speaker 5: we got a little bit with the greatest coach, or
Speaker 5: we got a lot with a bad coach. But we
Speaker 5: got a lot with the greatest coach. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: it's the it's incredible. But he's provided to the National
Speaker 5: Football League archives, and there's so much that hasn't been
Speaker 5: seen and used and will be used in the future,
Speaker 5: like the Michael Jordan Last Dance sort of scenario and
Speaker 5: stuff we're still capturing that, you know, not on a
Speaker 5: on an every week basis, but you know, there's just
Speaker 5: so much that we capture just in the natural progression
Speaker 5: of things that no one has to wonder if Coach
Speaker 5: Belichick is is participating.
Speaker 2: So once I say that, they they lose that argument
Speaker 2: real quickly.
Speaker 1: So there's a breaker, and then they.
Speaker 2: They lose all power.
Speaker 5: Then then they say, well, well I don't And you go, oh, well, well,
Speaker 5: now you know coach Belichick will do it. Why why
Speaker 5: why why won't you do it?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Well, well, and now now they're searching for another excuse
Speaker 5: because it's it's it's usually pretty easy to just say, well,
Speaker 5: I'm just going to be like coach Belichick. Oh, if
Speaker 5: you want to be like coach Belichick, and why don't
Speaker 5: you wear a wire all season?
Speaker 1: Perception versus reality?
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, there's a huge difference between the two.
Speaker 1: Ken what was it if you're allowed just kind of
Speaker 1: putting a period to the end two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: in that project, was there a scene? Was there a
Speaker 1: moment in two thousand and nine that you're allowed to
Speaker 1: share where you know it was only two hours. I
Speaker 1: think that was only two hours, you know, please correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, But was there a scene in
Speaker 1: there that you were dying to get in that at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you just couldn't find a
Speaker 1: way to.
Speaker 3: Get it in.
Speaker 5: You know, while I'm thinking about the perception versus reality
Speaker 5: is this is a huge one. Is that I feel like,
Speaker 5: you know, we were able in that film to give
Speaker 5: a real inside look into the to the true Bill Belichick.
Speaker 5: But I always wished I could had I could have
Speaker 5: had a sequence in the film that compared the real
Speaker 5: Coach Belichick and what was going on on a daily
Speaker 5: basis to what people thought was going on and what
Speaker 5: I heard on talk radio coming into the stadium every morning,
Speaker 5: because because I really thought there was a there was
Speaker 5: a really interesting story as a filmmaker between reality and
Speaker 5: perception and opinion and fact. And I would drive in
Speaker 5: and I would I would be hearing things presented as fact.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, Coach Belichick's doing this because of this,
Speaker 5: He's trying to send this message to this and I
Speaker 5: would say, well, I filmed that yesterday, and that's not
Speaker 5: what he said at all. Who does this person? I
Speaker 5: don't understand what this person is saying.
Speaker 2: I was in the room. That's not it at all.
Speaker 5: And it was presented as here's what happened, and it
Speaker 5: was actually I'm just spitballing here and making it up.
Speaker 5: But here's here's maybe what happened. It's just an opinion,
Speaker 5: but it was presented as fact. And I always wanted to.
Speaker 2: To go back and.
Speaker 5: Just get all of the all of those radio clips,
Speaker 5: play them, and then present what actually happened.
Speaker 2: Then play them and present what actually happened, and sort
Speaker 2: of show.
Speaker 5: The difference to the fans of like, hey, here's the difference, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, and maybe here's why coach is the way
Speaker 5: he is sometimes of you know, I'm not really gonna
Speaker 5: gonna engage in this back and forth because it doesn't
Speaker 5: really matter what I say. And there were so many
Speaker 5: times I felt like saying the coach, hey what what
Speaker 5: when they asked the question, why don't you just say, well,
Speaker 5: you're wrong that what I really meant was this and
Speaker 5: this and this and this. But he I don't think
Speaker 5: he he he's so advanced. I think this is going
Speaker 5: to sound weird. But he's almost like another step in
Speaker 5: the evolution of a of a I don't know, of
Speaker 5: a psyche like I. Here's how I see it. I
Speaker 5: care about what people think of me, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: trying to speak well right now talking with you, guys,
Speaker 5: I'm trying to present myself well and you know, speak clearly,
Speaker 5: and because i care about what people think of me,
Speaker 5: and I'm making sure not to say anything controversial or wrong.
Speaker 2: And you that's what you do in public.
Speaker 1: Coach, except for one.
Speaker 5: Coach really honestly is beyond other people's opinion. And he's
Speaker 5: had I saw that year opportunities where I knew that
Speaker 5: he had an opportunity to answer a question in a
Speaker 5: press conference that would completely get rid of a talking
Speaker 5: point that everyone was having that was completely wrong.
Speaker 2: If he just said, well, actually, I wasn't doing that.
Speaker 2: I was doing I wasn't doing X, I was doing why.
Speaker 2: But he didn't want to.
Speaker 5: Give away why, So he just allowed them to continue
Speaker 5: to be wrong and didn't correct them and didn't care
Speaker 5: that people were talking about him negatively.
Speaker 2: Incorrectly.
Speaker 3: Ken do you think he.
Speaker 2: Could that would kill me? That would would I would say,
Speaker 2: you're wrong, I'm right. I'm not a bad guy, guys,
Speaker 2: I'm not a bad he was. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't, It doesn't doesn't.
Speaker 3: But do you think that feeds his fire a little
Speaker 3: bit inside the building with his players, like because they
Speaker 3: know what's going on. So when if they turn that
Speaker 3: radio on and hear stuff that's being said that isn't true, it.
Speaker 1: Kind of he can kind of use that as a
Speaker 1: rallying point within the building.
Speaker 5: It's like a I mean, it's it's like a Jedi
Speaker 5: thing where he's so strong of will that like it
Speaker 5: made me want to follow him into about Like, look,
Speaker 5: I don't know how you can be that strong of
Speaker 5: a person to I mean, if you go to any
Speaker 5: sort of therapy or therapist or read any self help book,
Speaker 5: Like the very basics of trying to be healthy is
Speaker 5: being happy with yourself and not caring what society thinks
Speaker 5: or other people think. I mean, that's that's sort of
Speaker 5: where you start, right he is he is a master
Speaker 5: at that. He's so advanced that that's what I mean.
Speaker 5: He's almost the next step in evolutionary chain in that
Speaker 5: he doesn't try to do that, he doesn't meditate to
Speaker 5: do that, he just has that as part of his personality.
Speaker 2: He just does.
Speaker 5: He cares about people and he wants to help people.
Speaker 5: He's very, very incredibly nice to me and wants to
Speaker 5: help me do my films. But I think if I
Speaker 5: had an opinion that was wrong about him. He wouldn't
Speaker 5: care to change that. He's okay with who he is.
Speaker 5: He's perfectly confident that he is who he is, and
Speaker 5: if someone thinks differently about him, well, that's not going
Speaker 5: to change what he does. So why spend the energy?
Speaker 5: It's it's an efficiency to spend the energy where it matters,
Speaker 5: And it's really I think we'd be a better society
Speaker 5: if we all acted like him, no.
Speaker 1: Question, absolutely so. Really, so let me ask you this
Speaker 1: as somebody he doesn't I agree with everything that you're saying.
Speaker 1: This year has been a different year for obvious reasons
Speaker 1: from a success standpoint, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you mentioned it is a business and the win and
Speaker 1: losses can't be where he wants it to be. And
Speaker 1: while in Bill you trust, I still believe is one
Speaker 1: of the state's mottos, and I believe that there is
Speaker 1: a majority of people that feel that way. He's taking
Speaker 1: criticism that he hasn't taken in twenty years because of
Speaker 1: the on field product and what's going on as far
Speaker 1: as the record is concerned. Do you believe not the
Speaker 1: noise because he doesn't care about the noise, But do
Speaker 1: you think the on field record concerns him and as
Speaker 1: that is how he is judged maybe by peers or
Speaker 1: himself for that matter, does that bother him and do
Speaker 1: you think that that will drive him going forward?
Speaker 2: I would guess, well, I know losing.
Speaker 5: Is not something that's enjoyable at all to him. Like
Speaker 5: most coaches, I would say, all the great coaches, losing
Speaker 5: hurts one hundred times more than winning feels good. The
Speaker 5: pain you feel from losing is always more vivid than
Speaker 5: the joy.
Speaker 2: You feel from winning. It just is for those guys.
Speaker 5: And I would think that this year is not motivating
Speaker 5: because of what people think. Like you said, I mean,
Speaker 5: asking him about critics is like asking a lamppost.
Speaker 2: What he thinks, what it thinks about dogs. It's just
Speaker 2: not going to register. But if.
Speaker 5: If you ask, if it bothers him the win loss record,
Speaker 5: I'm sure, like forget what other people think. He doesn't
Speaker 5: like losing, and I'm sure he's as dedicated. He's more
Speaker 5: dedicated than any fan or any critic or anyone else
Speaker 5: involved in the entire New England Patriot world on getting
Speaker 5: it fixed, like no one's no one's more invested in
Speaker 5: getting it fixed. I can tell you that, you know, like, so, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm sure he's very bothered, and but what he does
Speaker 5: is not worry about I'm only speculating because I don't
Speaker 5: know what he does. But my guess is he's not
Speaker 5: focusing on what's happening. He's focusing on the work that
Speaker 5: is needed to fix it.
Speaker 1: Process right.
Speaker 5: He's always he's always about well, that's all great. But
Speaker 5: I can spend the next fifteen minutes lamenting what's what
Speaker 5: happened last week? Or I can spend the next fifteen
Speaker 5: minutes making next week better and today right now better,
Speaker 5: and our team right now better. And that should give
Speaker 5: always focuses on now and moving forward, and.
Speaker 1: That should get every Patriot fan a reason for hope,
Speaker 1: because he won't sleep or he won't be satisfied until
Speaker 1: that is corrected. I think one of the other things
Speaker 1: Kenny is that people you know, Oh, okay, hard knocks,
Speaker 1: Ken Rogers, oh, all the Patriots projects, two bills, you know,
Speaker 1: football life, you do other things. You know, you do
Speaker 1: a lot of other things that have been very critically acclaimed.
Speaker 1: The nineteen eighty three Draft film, The Deon Sanders film
Speaker 1: I want you to take a minute here to let
Speaker 1: people know the project that you're working on now and
Speaker 1: give it a plug, because I think your gifted is
Speaker 1: not the right word. You've earned the right to premiere
Speaker 1: some pretty impressive projects like the Two Bills around Super
Speaker 1: Bowl Week, and that's a great place for football fans
Speaker 1: who love football to see some really quality work. Please
Speaker 1: let everybody know what's the project that you're working on now.
Speaker 5: Well, it's unannounced, thirty for thirty. I'll actually be directing
Speaker 5: my fifth thirty for thirty that will be coming out soon,
Speaker 5: which is an unbelievable thought to me that I'd be
Speaker 5: able to direct five thirty for thirties.
Speaker 2: Certainly the premiere.
Speaker 5: You know brand when it comes to sports documentaries, something
Speaker 5: that that NFL Films is so thrilled to be part of.
Speaker 5: And it was really it was really great to have
Speaker 5: the Two Bills be part of. It's still my favorite one,
Speaker 5: I have to say, and I think.
Speaker 1: This one why.
Speaker 2: To me, it was.
Speaker 5: The realist thing I've ever done, the Two Bills, in
Speaker 5: that the goal of a filmmaker is to, or at
Speaker 5: least me as a documentary filmmaker, is to express the
Speaker 5: reality of a situation. You know, I try to express
Speaker 5: in football life, what you know what coach Belichick is
Speaker 5: like on a daily basis, to express.
Speaker 3: What the.
Speaker 5: Buffalo Bills of the early nineties go through having lost
Speaker 5: for Super Bowls, et cetera, et cetera. To express the
Speaker 5: relationship between Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick is one of
Speaker 5: those things that, as I said, is so nuanced and
Speaker 5: complicated and it's not black and white that I thought, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know how I'm going to do this.
Speaker 5: Then when they came and sat down, there was so
Speaker 5: much odd, true nuanced.
Speaker 2: Energy in the room between them.
Speaker 5: There was there was discomfort, there was love, there was
Speaker 5: tension that the way they looked at each other, there
Speaker 5: was all kinds of I'm not sure if we're gonna
Speaker 5: fight it during this conversation. I look, I really like you,
Speaker 5: but I know we're going to be coming up on
Speaker 5: some tough conversations.
Speaker 2: I might cry, I might yell at you.
Speaker 5: I don't know what's going on. And it was so
Speaker 5: complicated and you could feel it in the room. And
Speaker 5: at the end of the day when we all left,
Speaker 5: exhausted emotionally, our crew like, oh my god, like did
Speaker 5: you you could hardly.
Speaker 2: Breathe in that room.
Speaker 5: You didn't know what was going to happen, and by
Speaker 5: just showing them on screen looking at each other, using
Speaker 5: the split screen device to just let them look at
Speaker 5: each other sometimes and just let the film exist as
Speaker 5: that interview, just sometimes just living.
Speaker 2: In that awkwardness. I think you sensed it a lot.
Speaker 5: And there's there's sort of a moment that I that
Speaker 5: I left in where that for most of the film,
Speaker 5: they're sort of they're sort of talking as as too,
Speaker 5: I don't know, not necessarily rivals, but you know, they're
Speaker 5: co workers. They they have good feelings, and then you know,
Speaker 5: they they expressed some love and emotion for each other.
Speaker 5: And then I take them up to the Giant suite
Speaker 5: and everything's good, and I asked them to go to
Speaker 5: the Jets locker room and they they rebel against me.
Speaker 5: And it was at that moment that they joined forces
Speaker 5: and they they they were like, yeah, we're not doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and they walked off and left the building together. Even
Speaker 5: though they arrived separately, they they left together and turned
Speaker 5: on me, not in a very friendly way, but they
Speaker 5: were giving me grief like yeah, yeah, we're not we're
Speaker 5: not listening to you. It was it was like seeing
Speaker 5: a reunion in person, uh, and seeing a it was
Speaker 5: like seeing a marriage therapy, a marriage counseling session in person.
Speaker 5: And to be able to show that through the course
Speaker 5: of a film, it felt the the It just felt
Speaker 5: the realist portrayal of a true, complicated relationship that I
Speaker 5: think I'll ever capture on a film.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable answer. And I will just add this anecdote for
Speaker 1: whatever it's worth. As I remember, Kenny, you were standing
Speaker 1: outside of my office while this was going on, and
Speaker 1: I remember you were you were concerned, you were frustrated,
Speaker 1: we're talking about this, and there was an uneasy, uneasiness
Speaker 1: about you, and you know, what is this going to do?
Speaker 1: And did I get this right into I do this?
Speaker 1: And I remember saying to you, I said, Ken, you've
Speaker 1: got Bill Belichick and Bill Parcell sitting next to you,
Speaker 1: sitting in front of you, in front of a camera.
Speaker 1: Everything's going to be all right? Right? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you beat yourself
Speaker 1: up because you want to make the perfect film. And
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't at one hundred and ten percent perfect,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty damn close. And then to hear
Speaker 1: you explain that one little thing about no, we're not
Speaker 1: going to go into the Jets. We're not going into
Speaker 1: the Jets locker room. That that was your takeaway, and
Speaker 1: that's what you feel that that gave you satisfaction. You know,
Speaker 1: that moment. That's what makes you great, man, That's what
Speaker 1: makes you great. It's just like the coaches you hate
Speaker 1: to lose.
Speaker 5: When they started joking with me and busting busting on
Speaker 5: me that they weren't gonna listen to me, and where's
Speaker 5: where's the elevator?
Speaker 2: We're out of here?
Speaker 5: I knew, well he I knew the shoot was over,
Speaker 5: but b I thought they are really happy with what
Speaker 5: just happened.
Speaker 2: They're they're they're gett they're they're almost giddy.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: That's the way Parcels and Coach Belichick are is if
Speaker 5: they're if they're giving you some grief.
Speaker 2: In that way, they like you.
Speaker 5: And in that case, I felt like they liked what
Speaker 5: just happened, that they enjoyed being together, they enjoyed this
Speaker 5: this process, and I was like, I'm getting this on
Speaker 5: camera that that that you can just sense that they're
Speaker 5: they're enjoying walking together out of this room and they're
Speaker 5: they're ready to call this interview over because they're in
Speaker 5: a really good spot together and I was it just
Speaker 5: it was beautiful to me and and I just knew, like, well,
Speaker 5: that's the end of the film.
Speaker 2: I don't need anymore.
Speaker 3: This is it.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I'll tell you what. He's had maybe one
Speaker 1: of the best seats to this dynastic runover the last
Speaker 1: twenty years that anybody could possibly imagine. And to think
Speaker 1: that it all happened because of opening a bathroom door
Speaker 1: and being in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: I apologize on the promotional front, but I will tell
Speaker 1: Patriot fans who should be Ken Rogers fans, that my
Speaker 1: guess is, and I don't know what it is. Ken
Speaker 1: will have a film sometimes Super Bowl Week that will
Speaker 1: knock your socks off, like Deon Sanders, like the Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bills film. They're great films. He's great at what he does.
Speaker 1: Kenny A kid, Thank you enough for taking.
Speaker 2: Some time to talk with us today.
Speaker 1: All the best of my friend.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me always pleasure to
Speaker 2: talk with both of you. Thank you for downloading this podcast,
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