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

Wickersham, Seth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1631498231 ISBN 13: 9781631498237

Publisher: Liveright, 2021

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

From the Back Cover

“Seth Wickersham has managed to do the impossible: he has pulled off the definitive document of the Belichick/Brady dynasty.”
―Bill Simmons, The Ringer

“A tour de force work befitting the American sports franchise of this century. Wickersham’s terrific prose and story-telling is buttressed by his tireless and insightful reporting, going back to revealing stories of Tom Brady’s pre-dynasty life (he really should have been a San Diego Charger) and chronicling inner-inner workings showing Bill Belichick’s ruthless greatness. There’s so much more. You think you know everything, or almost everything about the Patriots’ dynasty? You don’t, and you won’t, until you read It’s Better to be Feared.”
―Peter King, NBC Sports

“Seth Wickersham’s prose soars in this fascinating study of two of the most iconic figures in sports history, and the New England Patriots dynasty they helped build. It’s Better to Be Feared will leave you with new insights into Brady and Belichick, their motivations and their vulnerabilities.”
―Kevin Merida, executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and former editor-in-chief of ESPN’s The Undefeated

“Seth Wickersham has broken open the black box that is the New England Patriots franchise under Bill Belichick. He takes the reader inside the locker room until they almost feel like they are standing by Tom Brady’s side as he wins Super Bowls―and as his relationship with the team deteriorates. It’s a beautifully written narrative on top of unprecedented access.”
―Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post

“I thought there was nothing more I needed―or wanted―to know about Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, or the New England Patriots. But Seth Wickersham has proved me wrong. And how. This deeply informed and fluent book is about what it takes to succeed in the ruthless, cruel, often euphoric world of the NFL―all the things you must be and all the things you can’t be as a human being, and how for the first two decades of the twenty-first century the Patriots―behind an unathletic quarterback nobody wanted―did it best. From brilliant, ice-cold head coach Belichick’s ‘emotionless pursuit of victory’ to the hot-blooded, ‘earnestly graceful’ Brady’s massive desire, we see the price these champions had to pay. Yes, this is about football, about two unusual men who still compete at the highest level, even though finally separated. But above all it’s about personalities and mindsets and the confluence of striving, skill, and luck in the making of success. And that makes it about life, generally. What a terrific, fascinating read.”
―Rick Telander, Chicago Sun-Times

“That the New England Patriots were not only the greatest team of all time but also the luckiest is once again demonstrated by the fact that Seth Wickersham has become their biographer. And I do mean biographer, for Wickersham has told the story of their quest for greatness not just on an epic scale but also on a human one. You still might not like Brady and Belichick after reading this book―after all, they weren’t trying to be liked. But you will admire them, and most amazingly of all, you will see glimpses of yourself.”
―Tom Junod, two-time National Magazine Award winner

Edition details

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1631498231
• ISBN 13: 9781631498237
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528