Jim Nantz and Tony Romo are again on CBS’s prime NFL broadcast group for an additional season, beginning with the Patriots’ opener

NFL

Within the new season, they’ll name two of the Patriots’ first three video games: the opener at Gillette Stadium on Sept. 10, and the Week 3 showdown with Aaron Rodgers and the hopeful Jets at MetLife Stadium.

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

August 30, 2023 | 9:01 AM

Jim Nantz is coming into his twenty first season as CBS’s lead NFL play-by-play voice, which implies he’s usually calling one of the best nationwide sport of the week.

However in spite of everything these years, he’s nonetheless adept at discovering a regional angle.

Throughout this New England reporter’s Zoom dialog with CBS’s prime broadcast group final week — which additionally included analyst Tony Romo, sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson, and producer Jim Rikhoff — Nantz famous that this season with be the third time in seven seasons collectively that the group will name the Tremendous Bowl.

“Or to place it one other method,’’ mentioned Nantz, “it is going to be the primary one gained by a quarterback apart from Tom Brady for this crew.”

Romo, chuckling, rapidly chimed in. “Maintain on, it’s not official but,” he mentioned, implying, primarily in jest, that the 46-year-old Brady might have yet another comeback in him earlier than the season is finished.

It’s arduous to imagine that Nantz and Romo — the latter of whom appears unbothered by newer criticism that maybe his evaluation isn’t as sharp because it was when he started, saying, “It got here with the territory of enjoying quarterback, and I acknowledge that it comes with this too” — are already coming into their seventh season collectively within the sales space.

It looks like just some Sundays in the past that Romo was the wunderkind broadcaster, contemporary out of the Dallas Cowboys huddle, who turned a direct sensation for enthusiastically telling viewers what was about to occur proper earlier than it did.

However Nantz, prepared with one other tidbit, notes that their group is now the longest-tenured No. 1 broadcast group at a single community. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have been paired collectively for 21 years, the primary 20 at Fox earlier than shifting to ESPN’s “Monday Evening Soccer” final season.

“Clearly, there’s an asterisk there as a result of Joe and Troy have been collectively for a very long time,’’ he mentioned. “However their producer and director didn’t go along with them. Our group of 5 [including Rikhoff and director Mike Arnold], plus many others that you just don’t see or hear about, have been collectively for a very long time. It’s stable. The consolation degree is there. The chemistry is off the charts.”

Certainly they’ve already referred to as two Tremendous Bowls collectively: Brady’s Tremendous Bowl LV win in his first season with the Buccaneers, and his final with the Patriots, a 13-3 win over the Rams in Tremendous Bowl LIII.

“We had him over the Rams in possibly the dullest Tremendous Bowl sport of all time,’’ mentioned Nantz. “Three-nothing going into the fourth. We had one snap contained in the crimson zone your complete sport, a 2-yard Sony Michel landing run, proper after a cross down the seam to [Rob Gronkowski] to get to the 2-yard-line.”

“That throw to Gronk was such a thrill given how the sport was going that it felt like a Hail Mary,’’ added Romo. “We spent a variety of time speaking about punts in that one.”

“After which we had Brady and the Bucs towards the Chiefs,’’ mentioned Nantz. “So this would be the first time with out Brady — we expect — being the profitable quarterback.”

CBS’s prime group had simply two Patriots video games final 12 months, and none at Gillette Stadium. Nantz, Romo, and Wolfson referred to as the Week 4 loss to the Packers at Lambeau Area and the season-ending loss to the Payments at Highmark Stadium in Week 18.

Within the new season, they’ll name two of the Patriots’ first three video games: the opener at Gillette Stadium on Sept. 10, and the Week 3 showdown with Aaron Rodgers and the hopeful Jets at MetLife Stadium.

“And I don’t assume it’s official but,’’ mentioned Nantz, “but it surely’s just about a dead-lock cinch that we’ll have the Patriots on the Raiders in Week 6. This crew has by no means carried out a sport from Las Vegas, in order that’s one to anticipate.”

Wolfson mentioned she all the time enjoys Patriots video games partly due to the interactions with coach Invoice Belichick, even when he could be abrupt with sideline reporters through the sport.

“He hasn’t modified a lot,’’ she mentioned with fun. “We’ve got a fantastic relationship off the sphere, I feel. After we sit down in conferences, he loves being with our crew. He picks Tony’s mind, he talks to Jim about historical past and golf, and naturally I find yourself asking all the robust questions that he hates. It’s an uncomfortable silence for a number of seconds, however we embrace it.

“He doesn’t take pleasure in these halftime interviews. I don’t blame him, He’s in such sport mode. It’s actually troublesome to be pulled apart and requested questions within the second. It’s our job although, and we’re going to proceed to do it.

“I really feel so lucky being round this period of the Patriots and being round Invoice. We will simply snort about any of the awkwardness.”

Romo, who retired as a participant after the 2016 season, mentioned he appreciates that he received to see the Patriots dynasty from the vantage level of a broadcaster.

“Nantz advised me once I first received right here, ‘Tony, I’m so glad that you just got here in whenever you did. That you simply received to expertise these guys, since you get to see how particular it’s and the way one of the best do it,’’’ Romo mentioned.

“And it’s a pleasure speaking to [Belichick] in manufacturing conferences, it truly is. We will discuss an hour with him earlier than we get to the precise sport. He’s all the time in a rush, you recognize, however I feel he enjoys it, as a result of we’ll be speaking about different stuff, and somebody will probably be ready, a star participant, and Invoice’s like, ‘He ain’t movin.’ That’s all the time enjoyable to expertise.”