It is daunting to try to write about ESPN’s new 10-part Tom Brady docuseries “Man in the Arena,” because it takes its name from a quote that criticizes critics for daring to criticize from the sideline. Which means I’m suddenly quite aware of my own cold and timid soul and that I have dared neither victory nor defeat. So I already feel shame for even having anything to say.
However my editor asked me to review this, and I’ve got children to feed, so here goes:
You will probably love this sprawling documentary about Tom Brady — available on ESPN+ starting Nov. 16 — if you like Tom Brady, or the Patriots, or just want to re-live some football in a pleasant way.
Stream “Man in the Arena” on ESPN+ starting Nov. 16.
If you are hoping for a new incisive look at Tom Brady, or to hear him excavate deep thoughts from his soul, or to have Bill Belichick explain anything at all, or, broadly, to have any of the narrative surrounding the greatest champion the NFL has ever known change or evolve or deepen because you watched this, you may very well be let down.
I may not have spent myself in a worthy cause, nor strived valiantly, nor known great enthusiasms, but I did watch screeners for the first three episodes of “Man in the Arena,” and those are my thoughts.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise. The series is directed by Gotham Chopra, who, in addition to being one of our absolute finest chroniclers of sports stories, is a friend and business partner of Tom Brady’s (their company produced this series and Chopra is doing a companion podcast.)
Also, Tom Brady is still playing football, as you may have heard. He’s not years removed like Michael Jordan was for “The Last Dance”. These are Brady’s mid-life memoirs, presented a little bit like one of those videos you might have begged your parents to buy you if you were lucky enough to have your favorite team win a championship when you were a kid. Soaring music. Stirring montages. Rugged men explaining how they worked harder and therefore succeeded.
It’s not that there’s nothing new or sincere from Brady. He curses a lot. At one point her curses a lot because he’s imitating Belichick. There’s also very little suave Brady here. He comes off a lot more like a football dork who just really, really, really wanted to be good — and then had some luck (and yes, worked incredibly hard) to make it happen. This is how he sees himself. He’s in a place to show that side, now, at least. But he’s not really letting go fully. Remember that time Brady got ripped up drunk at the Bucs parade and went tossing the Lombardi Trophy across boats before retreating to the safety of Gronk’s embrace? This is not that Tom. That Tom was 14 beers deep. This one is four sips into his third Coors Light, and already regretting how he’s going to feel at practice tomorrow.
But of course I’ve only seen the first three episodes (each around 50 minutes or so), which cover an epoch in Tom Brady’s life when he was just a football player, and not even a truly famous one at that. This is the rising action in Brady’s story; there are so many bad haircuts, and too many visors, but also the sudden emergence of a player whose sheer, exultant belief in himself … works.
“Man in the Arena” covers each of Brady’s 10 Super Bowl appearances, and he won his first three (XXXVI against the Rams, XXXVII against the Panthers and XXXIX against the Eagles.) So, these episodes explore Brady’s life before his actress ex-girlfriend revealed she was pregnant just as he began dating a supermodel, before the Patriots were caught spying, before Brady began working with a forceful, controversial trainer/guru type, long before we ever spent any of our lives pretending that the inflation level of a football is something we should be worried about and a decade-and-a-half before Brady would leave New England. The good stuff is up ahead, is what I’m saying, and I have hope that the remaining seven episodes will give us more to hold onto.
It is fun to re-live the early years through Brady’s eyes. Perhaps what’s most interesting here is that Brady makes it clear that he never saw himself as anything near the underdog he’s since been made out to be. He played QB at a college football powerhouse and figured he’d be drafted early-ish on Day 2 of the draft. His famous plummet left him largely undeterred; he still figured he’d be a pro football player anyway, and set about learning as much as he could.
You can tell it was important to Brady to tell his story with the help of those he admired most as the Patriots dynasty first congealed. So Willie McGinest is called upon to talk about changing the franchise’s losing culture through toughness. Drew Bledsoe is here to say how much he liked Tom, as a person, but that he didn’t see him as a threat and then to look forlornly into the camera as he recalls the events that led to him watching Brady win the Super Bowl before being exiled to Buffalo.
Lawyer Milloy is the elder statesman and team leader who is unceremoniously cut by the ruthless Belichick, teaching Brady that pro sports really are a business (even though Brady had already forced the Patriots into a business decision on Bledsoe). Milloy is replaced by Rodney Harrison, who became the heart of the defense. Eventually Teddy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel come along to discuss how the leaders of the team pushed each other relentlessly, calling themselves “The Edgers” because, well, they always pushed to the edge.
While Belichick is given broad credit for shaping the team’s culture, he does not sit for an interview (we NEED that, some day, when he’s ready). Brady does discuss his meetings with Belichick and how they dissected defenses player-by-player, but there’s no new revelation about how they got so good, so fast. That’s sort of the overall feeling here, honestly: It’s lovely that Brady wanted to give credit to his friends, but these are people we’ve heard plenty from before and they have little reason, at this juncture, to go beyond what they’ve previously said.
Those who do well in the arena generally get to tell their story the way they want it to be told, and by ignoring the thoughts of anyone who watched carefully and saw differently, they sometimes end up avoiding what actually made the experience all the things they claim it was. This sort of rigid glory is integral to Brady’s version of his own story — he and the rest of the Patriots blocked out the noise, he says in slightly varying ways, over and over. Maybe I wish there was more noise, now that we’re looking back.
(Or, maybe, as someone who grew up outside Philadelphia, I am just absolutely harmed by the way Brady belabors the way the Eagles meandered around, unbothered, at the end of Super Bowl XXXIX and lost a winnable game.)
But again, if you love football — and you can tell from this that Tom Brady loves football — this will be fun. The Patriots are fascinating, even just in their own words. And I do think we’ll get something profound out of the series as Brady’s life (and the Patriots’ path) becomes more complicated; Chopra is too good to not deliver on that.
It’s just that if you want an unvarnished look at the Patriots dynasty and Tom Brady’s role in it, you’re probably looking for Seth Wickersham’s book “It’s Better to be Feared.” If what you want is an expertly varnished version, with a custom varnish created just for Brady by a true varnish artisan, “Man in the Arena” is it.
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