Former New England Patriots quarterback and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has a documentary called “The Man in the Arena” on the way, and the doc's producer, Gotham Chopra, sat down with Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated to discuss it.
During the conversation, Chopra revealed when “The Patriot Way” was born:
“I’d now worked with Tom for, gosh, five years and did a lot of interviews, some of which were just sort of done to bank it, not for a specific project, just to have it,” Chopra said. “And there was something we recently did on that 2004 Super Bowl (against the Philadelphia Eagles in February 2005), where he talked about the culture of that team. All this stuff you hear about Patriot Way, and Do Your Job, stuff that Bill (Belichick) has created over the years, the philosophies, this is the year that really happened.”
The Patriots notched their third Super Bowl championship that season, which also happened to represent the latter half of back-to-back titles. That is the only time that Brady, who won six Super Bowls in New England, won consecutive rings.
“He’s like, ‘First year, kind of a miracle. The next Super Bowl, okay now we’re getting our feel,” Chopra said of Brady. “And that first Eagles Super Bowl, this is where the Patriot Way was born.’ And hearing him talk about that, and the culture of that team, a bunch of guys, all about the same age, same life experience at the time, the (Mike) Vrabels, the Ted Johnson, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison. … I told him afterward, ‘Tom, that’s the best thing you’ve ever done with us.’”
Of course, the “first year” was when the Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams during Brady's first season as the starter back in 2001-02, something no one expected. The second title then came in 2003-04, when New England defeated the Carolina Panthers.
By the time the Pats beat the Eagles in 2004-05, they were on a roll.
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