Criqui and Cross Out as Preseason Announcers

[PatsWickedPissah]

I've neither heard of or tasted Wachusett so I can't compare them, but my admittedly non-discerning pallette
finds nothing wrong with Sam Regular, Light or Oktoberfest.

You're a true Patriot Captain!

 

[Pewsterbaby]

It's a good idea although I'll miss Criqui because I grew up with him doing regular season NFL games in the 80's (and perhaps as far back as the late 70's?) on NBC (who had the AFC back then).
The second half of preseason games can get mind-numbingly boring. I think Perillo & Hart will keep me awake. Perillo is a ridiculously knowledgeable football encyclopedia, player personnel wise, and the best Patriots historian I've ever heard.
Hart, on the other hand, is a boisterous muscled-up meathead with a junior high boy's bathroom mentality. That works on In Progress (much to my dismay) but he'll have to keep that side of him in check during these broadcasts.

I just hope the whole thing degenerates into an Andy Hart 5 Hour Energy roid rage and there's a fracus melee in the booth.
Now, THAT would keep me awake during the doldrums of mid 4th quarter preseason game monotony.

Yer Pal,
Brooklyn Matt

 

[lurker1965]

Replaced by Dan Roche and Christian Fauria. Good riddance. Long time coming. Don't care much for Perrillo and Hart though.


Report: New England Patriots to make sweeping changes to preseason broadcasts | masslive.com

At least SOMEONE will tell us who is in in the 4th qtr.

 

[lurker1965]

THANK GOD!!!! They made the preseason broadcast Unbearable. It used to piss me off to hear Randy Cross refer to Matt Light as Todd Light.

Wince Wilfork says, "Hi."

From reading the articles I am not sure if there will be absolutely no play-by-play at all after the starters depart, or just very limited play-by-play announcing, with mostly "sports talk radio style conversation" during the remainder of the game.

It is experimental, so if it doesn't work out well it can be tweaked for the audience and given another shot the following week - and if it is a colossal flop, they can always go back to the standard format.

Preseason games can be tough to watch for the mass audience (as opposed to die hard fans who spend time on fan forums 365 days a year), so I can understand their inclination to try something new. While it has the potential to fail miserably, it also has the potential to bring more insight, analysis and intelligent to what right now is a relatively bland and nearly meaningless product (preseason games).

Why not give it a shot?

I agree, unlike several posters, I will watch before deciding.

The problem was they do not know how their audience changes. In the first Quarter talk of Brady's mansion (or Tebow) is OK as most of the audience has not thought about football since February. Then Brady comes out and they lose viewers NO MATTER WHAT.
Then the remaining audience is fools like us. We don't care about stuff that was released months ago and has no bearing on the game anyway. We want to know if Mallet's bad throw was because he sucks or if the UDFA guard was a turnstyle and he was throwing it away. And we are the 0.1% left! Give us some reason to watch another commercial.
If this change takes ANY of that into consideration, it'll improve it. Not greatly - it'll still be pre-season.

 

[AzPatsFan]

I just love those fans who resist an 18 game season so we can have 4 games of this sludge!

 

[captain stone]

But 2 pre-season games of wear & tear on our starters do not = 2 regular-season games of wear & tear.

 

[Deus Irae]

I just love those fans who resist an 18 game season so we can have 4 games of this sludge!

Why are you trying to conflate two separate issues?

 

[patsox23]

Don't care much for Perrillo and Hart though.

Report: New England Patriots to make sweeping changes to preseason broadcasts | masslive.com

What are you talking about, people? The news about Perillo and Hart is THE ABSOLUTE BEST part of the new changes. This is going to be fantastic. Paul and Andy are smart, funny, fair-minded and honest, and they watch practice every day with fiercely critical eyes to even the lowest guys on the depth chart. I did handstands when I heard this -- it's a revolutionary way of covering pre-season, a chance to get down to the nitty-gritty of how training camp events and competition translate to onfield action. I think you and your horde of "Like"-ers will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Angry Man]

THANK GOD!!!! They made the preseason broadcast Unbearable. It used to piss me off to hear Randy Cross refer to Matt Light as Todd Light.

To be honest that whole "Todd Light" mess up has become game day chat room legend now calling every player on the team "Todd."

 

[everlong]

This is so overdue it's not funny. I hope they put a little bit more money into the actual production as well. It really comes off as a minor league baseball telecast in terms of quality. When NFLN shows replays of other team's productions it's truly sad how bad the Patriot's ones have been. I like to think of the Patriots as a franchise that does everything in a top shelf manner but these broadcasts have told a different story.

 

[Patsrock]

THANK GOD!!!! They made the preseason broadcast Unbearable. It used to piss me off to hear Randy Cross refer to Matt Light as Todd Light.

Same thing that Gruden did!

 

[PATS16N0]

Nice, I like Christian Fauria

 

[PatsDeb]

Replaced by Dan Roche and Christian Fauria. Good riddance. Long time coming. Don't care much for Perrillo and Hart though.


Report: New England Patriots to make sweeping changes to preseason broadcasts | masslive.com

I like this move! I think Dan Roche is hilarious and at least the players will be called by their correct names! I like Fauria too. Good move Patriots!

 

[Section103]

This is how I'd like to see it work, given the changes that they seem to be implementing.

- Stick with play-by-play, but the addition of guys that actually know the team and attend the pre-season practices will upgrade the quality of the analysis instantly.

- After commercial breaks or during timeouts, cut to Andy and Paul to give their take on the game so far and include some of the social media aspects they have hinted at, but NOT during game action. Andy, Paul and social stuff can be focus of halftime programming. But IF they use them during the action, just let them cut in on audio and not a split-screen to take away from the field action. Let them cut in with an observation or quip about a bad or spectacular play. Maybe drop an anecdote about seeing the same thing in practice and how that compared to what we saw. Has it been working in camp but not game? Vice versa? Having trouble with it but seem to be working it out? That would be gold in my opinion. That's the stuff I want to know about pre-season, how is the game action comparing to practice reps/performance of new or bubble players.

- After commercial breaks or during TOs would also be an ideal time to take a deeper view into certain plays to show why a Mallett pass was intercepted or how a run play was blown up due to a rookie guard that missed a block.

- Side-line reporter shouldn't be used for promos exclusively (Like BOB and Sam Adams), but to actually give us a perspective of sideline action and things not caught by the camera in game. (Maybe they thought a Mallett INT was his fault but in checking the sideline, a coach was ripping into Aaron Dobson after the play) I'd even like to see a camera follow the sideline guy around, not just the broadcast camera; or even give him one of those wearable sport cameras to share what he sees at times. (if the footage is any good.)

- Open up player/coach interviews in-game for pre-season games. Have the player answer a Twitter question maybe.

 

[goheels22002]

Best of luck to Don Criqui who hung in there but was not able to keep up the last few years. He's 73 now. Randy Cross was okay but didn't have the inside view that I think Christian Fauria will have.

Dan Roche is the wild card. I though he was more of a baseball/hockey guy. I remember him as a sideline reporter for the Red Sox before the new owners decided that hot young women in tight clothing were more interesting.

(My guess was that interviewing hot young NESN reporters like Tina Cervasio and Jenny Dell was the only way Tom Werner and John Henry could get within 50 yards of an attractive woman. I can just hear Hazel Mae at her interview, "Of course I want the job. But I don't care if you're worth a billion dollars, do something about that ghostlike white face and stop whispering, you creepy old man!")

The Top 5 Hottest Women In NESN History

Anyway, Fauria and Roche have a big audition opportunity. They could be great. If they suck, I'll just go back to synching up the TV with the radio and listening to Gil and Gino. Oh. wait, Gil and Gino are gone, too! Yikes!

Who's on with Zo this year? Anybody ever heard Bob Socci? No way he'll do anything but suck after Gil Santos.

 

[hwc]

I would like to see Hart and Perillo work on making the PFW podcasts listenable first. i hope the preseason broadcasts don't disintegrate into fart and burping joke fests....

Of course, I probably won't watch much after halftime anyway. I try, I really do, but preseason games are pretty much insufferable no matter what. There's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig....

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

This is how I'd like to see it work, given the changes that they seem to be implementing.

- Stick with play-by-play, but the addition of guys that actually know the team and attend the pre-season practices will upgrade the quality of the analysis instantly.

- After commercial breaks or during timeouts, cut to Andy and Paul to give their take on the game so far and include some of the social media aspects they have hinted at, but NOT during game action. Andy, Paul and social stuff can be focus of halftime programming. But IF they use them during the action, just let them cut in on audio and not a split-screen to take away from the field action. Let them cut in with an observation or quip about a bad or spectacular play. Maybe drop an anecdote about seeing the same thing in practice and how that compared to what we saw. Has it been working in camp but not game? Vice versa? Having trouble with it but seem to be working it out? That would be gold in my opinion. That's the stuff I want to know about pre-season, how is the game action comparing to practice reps/performance of new or bubble players.

- After commercial breaks or during TOs would also be an ideal time to take a deeper view into certain plays to show why a Mallett pass was intercepted or how a run play was blown up due to a rookie guard that missed a block.

- Side-line reporter shouldn't be used for promos exclusively (Like BOB and Sam Adams), but to actually give us a perspective of sideline action and things not caught by the camera in game. (Maybe they thought a Mallett INT was his fault but in checking the sideline, a coach was ripping into Aaron Dobson after the play) I'd even like to see a camera follow the sideline guy around, not just the broadcast camera; or even give him one of those wearable sport cameras to share what he sees at times. (if the footage is any good.)

- Open up player/coach interviews in-game for pre-season games. Have the player answer a Twitter question maybe.

Why the hate for rookie Dobson?




Good post.

 

[chasa]

good, those guys were the worst. I'd watch the games on mute.

 

[patsox23]

I would like to see Hart and Perillo work on making the PFW podcasts listenable first. i hope the preseason broadcasts don't disintegrate into fart and burping joke fests....

This is the kind of thing that makes me POSITIVE you half-listen to PFW about three times a year and make a snap judgment that has nothing to do with the reality of that show. While they do have their fun and their tangents, I defy to come up with more substantive and well-rounded discussions of Patriots (or any other) football.

You don't like them, fine, that's of course your prerogative. But making sweeping statements based on limited exposure (or, perhaps, a bit of slow-on-the-uptake on your part), seems ridiculous.

 

[hwc]

This is the kind of thing that makes me POSITIVE you half-listen to PFW about three times a year and make a snap judgment that has nothing to do with the reality of that show. While they do have their fun and their tangents, I defy to come up with more substantive and well-rounded discussions of Patriots (or any other) football.

NFL SIRIUS radio puts PFW to shame.

You are correct. I usually can't make it through an entire podcast. I pull the plug when all of them start shouting at the same time.

I heard better analysis of the Pats in five minutes from Pat Kirwin today than the entire first hour of the PFW podcast I listened to this evening while working out.

Kirwin had the number of receiving first downs from last season that have to be replaced with new players. He had the Pats rank in the NFL in rushing TDs from last year. PFW had what seemed like an eternity on Tebow's religion.