Glory and grubbiness Why Netflix's new Dallas Cowboys series far outstrips The Last Dance

Of all the unflinching moments in the new Netflix blockbuster, America's Team: the Gambler and his Cowboys, one stands out more than most.

- Sean Ingle

It comes after the Dallas Cowboys' former star receiver Michael Irvin is asked about the White House, the secret mansion where some players would unwind while winning three Super Bowls during the 1990s. "I was the president of the White House," Irvin says with a cackle. "It was a safe place for camaraderie." But this, it turns out, was a very different style of team building than going down the pub.

"We had five rooms and whatever you liked you were going to mingle with your like," Irvin says. "In that room you may be smoking weed, in this room they may be doing ecstasy, coke, whatever. There's a group of girls in each room and you just kind of bounced from room to room." Another player says: "We played hard, then we played hard." A third confesses to getting locked up "two or three times" and being let loose by cops "maybe 100 times." Then the Cowboys' fixer appears, to explain how he would clean things up.

At this point two thoughts come to mind. This is a far grittier and, yes, better sports documentary than The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan hagiography that bewitched us during lockdown. In fact, I am not sure I have seen a more complete portrayal of the rise and fall of a sports dynasty, in all its glory and grubbiness. But also: can we have more of this, please?

Imagine a Netflix epic on Manchester United that had Sir Alex Ferguson unloading on every topic under the sun, Rio Ferdinand on his missed drugs test, and the Glazers taking you into the heart of their takeover. This is, in essence, the NFL equivalent.