Sound speeds.
Okay, here we go. Here's our frame.
Take one.
Okay, Aaron. I'm just gonna have you take a giant step backwards
and I want you to walk up.
Give me a lot of attitude, sit back down.
- So, step back... - One big, giant step back.
So, like this? And then?
A little motion left or right, doesn't matter.
Just come on up.
So, before I do it, I'm just gonna step forward and just go like this.
- Exactly. Great. - All right, all right.
- You don't have to fold 'em. - I'm gonna fold 'em.
Camera's rolling.
Good.
Good. Come back. Do it one more time, but look happy.
Yeah.
- You've got a nice smile. - I like the happy one.
Very nice.
- Allow me. - Okay. Here we go.
There you go, very nice. Loving it.
Man.
I called him Chico, man.
I hope people don't take this the wrong way.
You only know...
...what someone is to the core.
And you only can judge them by what you see.
I have some moments where I'm just like...
...like, "You should have seen that," like...
"Well, Deion, you should have seen that."
The New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez arrested
and led out of his home in handcuffs.
Aaron Hernandez was charged with murder today.
The 27-year-old Odin Lloyd was killed execution-style.
Aaron Hernandez has been indicted on two new murder charges.
Aaron Hernandez could well be the first serial killer from the NFL.
Patriots. Yeah, it's Belichick.
What do you got?
2010 draft was critical to our future.
A lot of our established older players are phasing out.
And to be competitive, you have to do well in the draft.
2010 was really a big moment for the Patriots.
Talent had started to drain, and the feeling was
that the franchise was in decline.
And they needed to be resuscitated.
And so they made a couple of significant draft picks that changed everything.
We're on the clock with six-40 remaining.
Bill, they gotta get the trade in.
All right, John, write this name down.
Devin McCourty, cornerback, Rutgers.
For me it was a honor to be a part of that class, man.
It was time for the new regime, the new guard, to come in here
and to let go of some of the older guys.
Devin, it's Coach Belichick. How you doing?
We're about to make you a New England Patriot.
I just wanted to be the one to call and congratulate you
and welcome you to the team, all right?
The top four to five rounds of that draft
really end up being that kind of second wave of the Patriots dynasty,
and I think we take a lot of pride in that.
Hey, Johnny, write this name down.
G-R-O-N...
K-O-W-S-K-I.
Tight end.
With the 42nd pick in the 2010 NFL draft,
the New England Patriots select Rob Gronkowski,
tight end, Arizona.
When I was drafted to the Patriots, it was a proud moment.
My family came on stage as well. We got in a huddle.
We're doing "Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!"
in the huddle, jumping up and down.
Then all of a sudden I get a phone call from the Patriots.
All right, Rob.
And they said, "Hey, Rob," like,
"you can get off the stage now. Like, enough is enough."
And I'm sitting there like, "Wow, I'm already in trouble.
It's been five minutes since I've been on the Patriots, and I'm already in trouble."
I can picture Bill in that draft room just being like,
"Why the fuck did we just draft this kid?"
Oh, look at this.
Lord have mercy on us.
The Patriots have a big draft. They draft two tight ends...
...Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.
And now, with another selection, 1-13 overall,
they go Aaron Hernandez, who, by the way, is from Bristol, Connecticut,
played high school football right down the road,
but he was the best tight end in football last year.
The John Mackey Award winner.
I think Aaron Hernandez is a tremendous pick
because I'm not talking about off the field,
I'm talking about on the field, he was a safety net.
Hernandez was very quiet, you know, had a questionable background in Florida.
Other teams claimed they took him off their draft board because he had issues.
We knew that there were issues,
but you make a calculation on draft day.
Look, we're getting first-round talent for fourth-round price.
If it doesn't work out right, we can always cut him.
And Hernandez inside the 25.
Hernandez is not a first-round pick,
because there are some questions about his character.
Some of the things he did off the field.
Teams were aware that he smoked marijuana all the time.
But it's so much more than that.
I'm Aaron Hernandez from Bristol, Connecticut.
I play at Bristol Central High School.
Aaron Hernandez came out of this really troubled childhood.
He's trying to find his way in high school and becomes a football star.
But when he was 16 years old,
his father, who kept him on the straight and narrow, dies,
and Aaron started to unravel.
He fell in with a rowdy crowd, and he learned a whole new life.
So you have all these different issues this kid's confronting,
when, you know, the big-time colleges come looking for him.
Florida Gators,
and Urban Meyer, the head coach.
Urban Meyer, the head coach of the Florida Gators,
came to the principal of Aaron's high school and said,
"We want him to leave, come to Florida."
Set. Hike!
Aaron arrives in Florida barely 17 years old...
...still troubled beyond anyone's belief.
During that time, he's in a bar
and there's a dispute over a 12-dollar tab in the bar.
Hernandez got into a fight with the bar manager.
He punched the manager so hard, his eardrum burst.
But at Florida, they had a fixer for the players when they get in trouble.
And that lawyer was there for Aaron, and everything went away.
So he comes away from the bar incident
and he learns very early in his career about what Football Inc. is,
and that is that you can get in trouble and not get in trouble.
You guys are stepping in to what we call the National Football League.
You ain't trying to get in.
You ain't applying, you in the league.
And if you think having money gonna change you in a positive way,
you sure enough fooling yourself.
If you like to smoke dope now, if you like kush now,
you gonna be buying all the kush they got.
If you--
Y'all want me to lie to y'all
like the rest of 'em do when they come in here.
When Buddy Ryan cut me, I played three years in Philadelphia,
and he cut me because he couldn't depend on me.
And they made me get my stuff and get gone.
I had to get smart.
First question. In the back.
I was just wondering what changes did you make
from when you got cut to when you went to Minnesota?
Man, you gotta get your stuff together.
You gotta stop lying to yourself. I stopped smoking that dope.
Stopped doing all the things I was doing,
and I started getting my body in shape and I start being able to run all day.
I told my old friends, "Don't call."
Now, this should be, this should be, right now,
the fork in the road for a lot of y'all to get y'all stuff together
before you get popped, 'cause you're gonna get caught.
You're gonna get caught.
It's the opening of Patriots training camp.
Players to keep an eye on, a completely new group of tight ends,
including rookies Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.
Lots of optimism for the season.
Right after the Patriots drafted Aaron Hernandez,
I think Belichick just figured, "I've got this culture here,
my locker room will police him.
He's a great football player. He's gonna help us win."
Aaron was a big part of what the Patriots were trying to do.
You know, to grow and build offensively.
He had so much confidence
that he thought every play should be drawn up for him, you know? And...
he knew he was a really good player, and he was.
Brady firing away.
Hernandez.
He's not done inside the 15, and down to the two.
The Patriots actually introduced this new type of offense
that featured two tight ends.
Brady throw, back of the end zone,
and the catch by the rookie. Rob Gronkowski for the touchdown.
And together, those dudes were uncoverable.
Still going down the sideline.
You couldn't put a corner on those guys, they were too big.
You couldn't put a safety on them because they were too fast and too quick.
That's Hernandez shaking off a tackle. Unbelievable.
I come out every day and they put me places.
I go out and go as hard as I can and make some plays for the team.
He is a nightmare match-up.
He's so shifty, he's elusive,
you can move him around in so many different places.
When Aaron Hernandez came in, we won 14 games our rookie year.
And then the next year we go to the Super Bowl.
And over the middle, getting free, touchdown, Hernandez.
Brady to the end zone. Hernandez is there. Incomplete.
And the New York Giants are the Super Bowl champs.
That game was tough.
And we lost, but I'm like, "We'll be back."
Like, we were 14 and 2 the year before,
Super Bowl the next year. We're gonna keep doing this.
Next time, we'll win it.
Aaron Hernandez is getting a big-time contract extension,
Five-year extension that could be worth as much as 40 million dollars.
- Aaron, congratulations. - Thank you.
What is your reaction to this great news?
This is a place that not only did it change my future
from them paying me, but it just changed me as a person,
'cause you can't come here and act reckless and do your own stuff.
Aaron Hernandez, in his interviews,
would give the clichés, but then there would always be like, "What was that?
What do you mean, reckless?
So, what is...? How do you define recklessness?"
Which I and others should have asked, but nobody ever asked him.
You have a baby on the way?
I do. I have a daughter on the way. Yes.
- Perfect timing. - November 12th. Yes, perfect timing.
- Thank you, Aaron. - Thanks, man
Congratulations.
And so, he was always kind of giving you little breadcrumbs
of things that were going on... in his mind.
I was most impressed with Hernandez.
How he came in today.
I think he's got such a good heart.
He's a good guy.
He told me he had to be careful with the people around him now.
He recognizes it himself.
He's come into so much money.
We knew that there were some issues
outside of our building.
But it was our hope and desire
that the Patriot way would be a great influence on him.
Him saying, "I want you around here for the next seven years,"
saying like he really wants me a part of his family, it means a lot.
Aaron and I, we had a genuine feeling
of connection and love.
Every time he'd see me, he would kiss me on the cheek.
I mean, this is something I do with my sons.
I think he viewed me, you know, sort of as a loving, paternal figure.
I remember when my sweet wife, Myra, passed away of ovarian cancer.
Aaron handed me a check for $50,000
to the fund that we had set up in memory of Myra.
I said, "Aaron this is very sweet. You don't need to do this.
You've already got your contract."
And he started getting tears in his eyes.
"No," he said, "This is very important to me. I want to do it for you."
It really touched me.
- Okay! - Yeah.
I felt he was what we wanted as the perfect Patriot player.
The Patriots were always a team I wanted to be on,
because they were always winning.
When I joined the team,
you know, I'm in my tenth NFL season.
I have yet to play in a playoff game.
You know, I've been a part of a lot of mediocre teams.
Watching practice was exciting.
I had a lot of admiration for Aaron's athletic ability.
I mean, it was impressive.
So, I'm like, "All right, my odds are pretty good to get to the Super Bowl."
But I quickly realized that something was going on.
There was this troubling undercurrent.
During training camp, Wes Welker makes this beeline over to me,
and grabs me by the shoulders.
He says, "Brandon...
...your locker is in between Gronk and Aaron Hernandez.
Now, Aaron, he's gonna... fondle his genitalia in front of you.
He's gonna talk about bathing with his mom.
You just gotta ignore it.
You gotta ignore it."
It was like Wes has seen a ghost, the way he was looking at me.
You know, I thought Aaron was a good kid.
I had a locker right next to him, tried to help him, tried talking to him.
But at the same time,
I don't know, it was...
I think it was pretty glaring that there were issues.
What's up, Brandon?
In the locker room,
we get away with saying a lot of offensive and disturbing things.
...the other ones, they were... gang bang!
But what Aaron was saying,
it deviated far off the norm of just locker room bullshitting around.
He would rage out on players, you know, "Motherfucking people."
Saying he's gonna beat their ass. "Fucking, I'll kill you."
Which is something that I don't take lightly.
When Aaron would have meltdowns,
Deion could come over and have a quiet conversation with him.
I probably had...
...the closest relationship with Aaron.
He and I was neighbors. He lived right across the street from me.
His lady used to come over to help with the kids.
Anytime Aaron was boiling,
the coach would always ask me, "Is everything good?
Is everything good?"
It was like, "Check with Deion."
All right, seven on seven, red area.
I remember one particular time,
we're out there doing a walk-through with Tom.
Aaron's out there in flip-flops
going through the drills, laughing, flipping the ball around,
calling Bill Belichick "Daddy."
Put that down! Stop!
Tom's like, "Man, get the fuck outta here."
You know, like, "What the fuck are you doing?
Get the fuck off the field."
That got a rise out of Aaron. He was MF-ing.
"Motherfucker," you know, stormed off the field.
And oftentimes, that didn't elicit any response out of Bill.
All right.
Punt return.
I remember one time in practice, we're doing punt return.
You know, we're catching balls, and Aaron was sitting there,
"I'm the best returner on this team. Bill, why am I not back here?"
Like, literally, a rookie sitting there talking like this.
And, like, Bill's, like, laughing.
And, like, I'm not...
I'm like, "Why's he love this guy? I don't get it. I don't get it."
But when you're that talented,
a lot of people put up with a lot of stuff.
It reminded me of being on teams where
they let the star players do what they want to do.
Doesn't matter how you win, as long as you win.
Set!
Brady, a fade...
Caught! Hernandez, touchdown, Patriots.
Snap to Brady, looks, fires left.
Hernandez walks into the end zone.
Great to see Aaron Hernandez making moves like this.
Play-action. Brady throws. Touchdown, New England.
Aaron Hernandez.
He just does so many different things. Just so good.
Another W, baby.
Aaron always did a lot of crazy things.
Pissed a lot of people off.
But I think, for the most part, on the field, in the locker room...
...we had things under control.
Off the field is something totally different.
Totally different.
What do you think a hit on you's worth, man?
Yeah, with a $50 bounty on your head
- would you be pissed? - Not really.
What do you feel like a good hit on you is worth?
Like, I think-- I think you're worth at least,
like, 100 Gs on a bounty, dawg.
No comment.
Aaron was always up to something at night time.
All the warnings were,
"Do not hang out with Chico. Do not hang out with Chico."
That was the code.
"For your own safety, do not hang out with Aaron."
So, something was known.
We had a number of people on the staff
who knew that he was spending time with friends of his
from his hometown of Bristol, Connecticut.
Aaron was making references to hanging with his boys from Bristol.
A lot of people didn't think this was a very good situation for him.
I saw the group he was around.
I had plenty conversations with him
about him removing himself from certain individuals.
"You in a different world now, you don't need to do all that."
You know, outside altercations and all this other craziness.
Like, "Aaron, that's stupid." But...
he still somehow couldn't separate himself from... that dark side.
Investigators are looking for clues
in the mysterious death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd.
The body of Odin Lloyd was found Monday in an industrial park.
The 27-year-old was killed execution-style
just a mile from Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's million-dollar mansion.
Police swarmed Aaron Hernandez's home Tuesday evening.
Investigators are not calling him a suspect in this investigation,
but they did find an SUV near the crime scene
that led them to his doorstep.
They didn't take him in.
You know, just came and stopped by, questioned him.
Didn't have too much communication with Aaron about this stuff.
It was just more like, "Are you good?"
I do recall him saying...
"Yeah, man, this stuff gonna blow over, it's fine."
It's so wild how...
...how fast everything just changed.
The ongoing investigation has created a frenzy
outside of Hernandez's home.
ABC News is reporting that the 23-year-old
intentionally destroyed his sophisticated home security system
and smashed his cell phone before handing over the fragments to investigators.
Police have found a video that shows Aaron and the victim
together Monday morning after a night of going out.
All the arrows are starting to point in his direction,
and it's not a good sign for the Patriots' star tight end.
What happened on Monday night?
Can you just tell us what happened on Monday night?
Are you involved in the murder at all?
Anything you want to say? Are you being arrested?
The embattled Patriots tight end
spent much of Thursday away from home.
First, he drove to Gillette Stadium.
Next, Hernandez hustled into the facility.
I found out he was working out in the weight room.
I went down immediately and I said, "Aaron, tell me, did you do this?
Because if you did, I know you must have had some good reason.
I'm gonna get you the best defense lawyer we can get
and I'll do it at my cost."
And he looked me right in the eye,
not blinking or anything, and said,
"Mr. Kraft, I didn't do that. I was in Rhode Island," or something.
And when he said it, I believed him.
He actually changed my life, and how I look at people because...
...it just... I...
To this day...
...I can't believe I got snookered like that.
Aaron Hernandez was charged with murder today.
He was signing a $40 million contract with the Patriots,
had this amazing future in front of him. It boggles the mind.
Aaron was being led out of his house in handcuffs,
and it was on television everywhere.
And I just remember thinking, whatever warm feelings we might have towards Aaron,
it looks like he's done the ultimate bad thing
and he can't... We can't have him on our team anymore.
I'll... No, that's ridiculous. I'll find out about that.
At that time, my dad and Bill were both out of the country,
but I felt strongly we couldn't wait.
And so I called my dad and he very much agreed.
And we called Bill.
And, you know, Bill, as is his wont,
was always more measured. In the beginning, he said,
"You know, he's not guilty yet."
And there were competitive issues too.
He didn't want to have to lose an amazing football player.
So, Bill's instinct would be, play this fucking thing out till the end.
And I just knew we couldn't play it out till the end.
And not 'cause of how it looked on us,
but because we had to set a fucking example.
I mean, like, it's like, "This guy's a murderer."
It was moments after he was arrested
that he was then cut as the team severed ties,
but there seemed to have been so many red flags.
This was a guy who basically had the devil on one shoulder
and all along they knew the devil could win out.
The Patriots will certainly be asked what the team knew then,
and did they look the other way?
Okay...
...I'm gonna address the situation involving Aaron Hernandez today.
Having someone in your organization
that's involved in a murder investigation is a terrible thing.
And our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the victim,
and I extend my sympathy, really, to everyone who's been impacted.
It's time for the New England Patriots to move forward and...
...be a team that our fans can be proud of.
That's what we're here for.
Bob Kraft has said he feels duped by Aaron Hernandez.
Do you personally feel duped?
Yeah, I'll refrain from making any more comments
on any ongoing people involved in... judicial process.
Isn't this the time to do that, though?
You're not in the season yet.
Wouldn't this be the time, if ever, to do it?
But I can't do it.
Could you face any implications or penalties?
Thank you.
Aaron Hernandez, basically, became dead to the Patriots.
All right guys, go easy now.
Bill Belichick told his players, "He's not to be spoken of any more.
He's not part of this team. We're moving on."
It's a fresh start for... you know, all of us.
I know this last six weeks have been, you know, distracting for a lot of people.
But we're gonna to try to move forward as best we know how.
But there were still so many questions that were unanswered.
So, the Globe Spotlight Team spent a year diving into every aspect of Aaron's life.
We found that long before the murder of Odin Lloyd,
Aaron Hernandez was sinking into a turbulent, troubled,
really volatile and violent world.
In July of 2012,
Aaron Hernandez is in downtown Boston at a club.
He's out with his drug-dealing buddy from Bristol, Connecticut.
Hernandez and his friend leave that club
and come up next to this car with two guys in it
who Hernandez believes disrespected him inside the club,
and they opened fire.
Witnesses tell police that a silver SUV pulled up to a car,
firing eight to ten fatal shots.
They escaped law enforcement.
But Aaron's paranoia is increasing, his drug use is increasing,
and he asked to meet with Bill Belichick.
Aaron told him that his girlfriend and his daughter's safety was in jeopardy.
Belichick asked Hernandez
if he wanted help from the security department of the Patriots,
and Hernandez said, "No, thank you."
Instead, he asked Bill Belichick to trade him to a team on the West Coast
so he'd get away from New England. Just get away.
But Belichick said no to Aaron Hernandez.
At the 2013 combine,
Aaron Hernandez asked to be traded to a West Coast team,
saying that he feared for his family's lives.
What did you do with that information?
You know, it's an unfortunate situation about Aaron,
and I don't have anything to add to it.
Bill Belichick has never fully explained
why he didn't trade Aaron Hernandez,
but it was probably because the team had just invested all this money in him,
because he was still a great player.
This embodies what we call Football Inc.,
which is a cold, corporate enterprise that just wants to win.
And in this case, a young man ends up dead.
I don't think anybody really knows
why Aaron Hernandez killed Odin Lloyd.
Odin Lloyd was a semi-pro football player in Boston.
Odin and Aaron had some common interests.
They loved football, they liked to go out and party,
but there is no evidence that Odin Lloyd was involved
in the criminal behavior that Aaron Hernandez was involved in.
He was a warm-hearted guy.
People loved him.
It hit hard when he died.
Hundreds of people came out to mourn 27-year-old Odin Lloyd.
The semi-pro football player
was remembered by family, friends and teammates.
He was my strength.
I love him dearly.
Our hearts and prayer go out to those families.
It's just a sad story, it's a sad ending, a sad story.
These are the live pictures you're seeing back in the courtroom.
Aaron Hernandez obviously awaiting his fate.
Members of the jury, upon your oaths,
you do state that the defendant, Aaron Hernandez,
is guilty of murder in the first degree.
Guilty of murder in the first degree.
Aaron... what were you thinking, bro?
What did you think was gonna happen?
If you decide to do this...
...like, really, what do you think is gonna happen?
It just don't make sense, man.
We knew he wasn't the ideal citizen,
but did we ever suspect
this is a guy who's gonna be running around with guns, shooting people? No.
Aaron was obviously a very talented player,
and he got a big contract,
which in retrospect, no, we shouldn't have done that.
Probably the best thing for Aaron Hernandez's pro football career
and his life might have been to go to the Seattle Seahawks.
Not be within a two-hour drive of people he grew up with
from his hometown of Bristol.
You know, someone got killed.
A young person lost his life because of Aaron Hernandez.
When we bought the team,
I said that we could make a difference in our community,
and make things better.
We didn't in this case.
There are parents who wake up every day without their sons.
And a young daughter without her father.
We messed up on this one,
and for those of you who feel pain,
I apologize.