The Ernie Adams Mini Documentary is High Quality, Grade A Patriots Porn

Hollywood has pretty much shut down. Can't-studios like Marvel and Pixar are in a holding pattern. Lucasfilm is giving us four hours a year of "The Mandalorian," but nothing else. And as far as Netflix and Amazon, to find the diamonds you've got to paw through a lot of dogshit. 

Thankfully though, there's one production company still producing quality work, and that is Kraft Productions. Not even the NFL stealing a draft pick from the Patriots football operations has stopped these auteurs from creating their latest work of art, "Behind the Scenes: Ernie Adams." Like I said when the trailer dropped on Friday, any documentary that could shed a flickering candlelight on the deep, dark enigma that is Bill Belichick's International Man of Mystery was something I couldn't wait to see. And it did not disappoint. 

Here's the link:

See for yourself. It's only 12 minutes long, but it's given us more information about this shadowy figure than we've gotten in the previous 20 years. I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum because it will take you as much time to read them as to just watch for yourself. But some of the highlights:

• Adams has a football book collection that rivals the Library of Alexandria. And adds that he's been continuously reading some book or another for 60 years. Left unsaid, so I'll say it, is that his collection isn't complete until he gets that one that celebrates all he's accomplished in the last two decades. And it's available now wherever fine literature is sold. (Cha-CHING.)
• After being roommates and offensive line mates with Belichick at Phillips Andover Academy, he got his first job in coaching with the Chuck Fairbanks era Patriots in the mid-1970s. And correctly points out that Fairbanks had assembled a Star Chamber coaching staff. (I'll add that the current Patriots offense is a direct descendant of the Erhardt-Perkins system that was developed then.) And that not only did Fairbanks invent the practice of scheduling every minute of practice the way the Pats still do, but that his old defensive coordinator Hank Bullough would recognize all the team's current defensive calls.
• Like I said Friday, in Cleveland Art Modell used to say, "I have $10,000 for anyone who can tell me what Ernie Adams does." Now that he himself answers the question on camera, the better question is, "What doesn't he do?"
• Come for the background on Ernie Adams, stay for the way he and Belichick communicate in a shorthand that only they understand. Like two patients sitting on the bench in the shade outside a nursing home, their meetings on the practice field barely meet the minimum standard of conversational English. "Well, if uh, they, keep, the, controlled reps …" "We're in trouble. Yeah, I agree." If you heard your toddler talking nonsense like that you'd assume they've either invented a secret language with an imaginary friend or it's time to download some Baby Einstein programs.
• My absolute favorite moment is when he draws a direct line from a call that Bill Parcells made when he was the DC with the Giants in 1981 to a big play in the Snow Bowl game. A play that I've mentioned here a few times as the pivotal moment in the greatest game in the history of the old Foxboro Stadium, but until now I had no clue it originated from an old Parcells call from 20 years prior that only he and Belichick remembered. Mind bottling.
• Like the preview promises, the deep, unfathomable, bewildering mystery that is "Pink Stripes" is, in fact, addressed. And without giving away how Adams answers the question I myself have asked Belichick more than once, suffice to say I might make getting to the bottom of it my life's quest. Like Dr. Henry Jones searching the world for the Holy Grail.
• Lastly, Scott Pioli gives his opinion that Adams belongs in the Patriots Hall of Fame. He may never get there. But deserving? Absolutely.

Here's one for the movie posters and the back of the Blu-Ray edition: 

"'Behind the Scenes: Ernie Adams' is some of the most high class Patriots Porn ever released. And left me wanting more. Certified Fresh on Thornton Tomatoes [TM]!"