If you tune in to 98.5 The Sports Hub on Sunday for the Patriots’ season opener against the Raiders, you’ll hear familiar voices.

Bob Socci and Scott Zolak have become fan favorites and a part of New Englander’s Sunday routine. The duo has enhanced some of the biggest moments in franchise history with grace and some flare, inscribing themselves in history forever with memorable calls.

But, there’s been a third guy inside the WBCN 104.1 now 98.5 radio booth for those moments and many, many prior alongside Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti, making sure everything goes smoothly.

Marc Cappello has been the producer for every Patriots radio broadcast each of the last 30 seasons. Sunday’s matchup with Las Vegas will be the start of his 31st consecutive year sitting with former and current greats on the road or at Gillette Stadium.

He’s seen every snap of the Bill Parcells, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, Jerod Mayo and now Mike Vrabel Eras and broken bread with legends.

As we begin another ‘turning point’ type moment for the Kraft family and the Patriots, we thought it’d be fun to reminisce with Capello on each of the most significant moments and decisions in team history ahead of this season. So, for two days in July after training camp practices, I sat with Marc high above Gillette Stadium and basically just asked him to start talking. As a fellow Italian, I knew once he got going, my job would be easy.

What he delivered over 3.5 hours was quite a unique perspective, some great memories and fantastic insight into Foxborough folklore…

The Parcells Era

“My most memorable thing with Parcells was when I had to get an ID from him. Like, we used to do IDs, you know, like, ‘hi, you’re listening to WBCN 104.1 The Patriots Rock Radio Network,’ or, ‘This 98.5 The Sports Hub, home of the Patriots,’ stuff like that. So, I remember they had set this up…so I had to come down here at the old stadium and I had to go into Parcells’ office and I had to wait outside. It was intimidating. I was, like, either a 24, 25. I was like, ‘this is f***ing Bill Parcells.’ I’m going into this guy’s office and I’m going to talk to this guy one-on-one. Like, I was completely shitting myself. Even if it was only for an ID. which literally could have taken a minute or so.

“So, I go in and I’m in the office. I go in the office and he says, ‘you Marc?’ I go,’ yes.’ He goes, ‘you work for (WBCN) I guess? Sit down. What do we got to do? I don’t really typically do this shit.’ I had a set piece of paper saying ‘hi and then you plug in your name. You’re listening to the flagship station in the New England Patriots 104.1 FM WBCN the Patriots Rock Radio Network.’ And so I had the sheet and he looked at it and he was like, you know, he glanced over for like, a couple seconds. And he goes, ‘what are you gonna do? Are you going to record this?’ I go, ‘yeah.’ He goes, ‘all right, well, get over here.’ And I was sitting like, across from where he was sitting. So I walked over there and I had my microphone like right up there. And he goes, ‘tell me when.’ And I said, ‘whenever you want.’ I said, “I’m rolling.’ And he – I think he did it in the first or second take, where it came out really good. And I said, ‘well, let’s just do a couple more, just in case. We can always edit it, blah, blah, blah.’ And he says, ‘All right, not a problem.’ He was really cool about it. So, we did about four or five of them and he goes, ‘is that it?’ I go, ‘yeah, that’s it’. I said, ‘thank you. I appreciate it.’

“Now, I was trying to get out of there, I didn’t want to bother this guy any longer. And he probably doesn’t want me in his office anyway. And so I got my stuff and I’m walking out and he goes, ‘well, wait a minute.’ He goes, ‘so you cover the team?’. And so then he started asking about the broadcast. So he was, you know, he was asking about the broadcast and I just told him, ‘(the station) just got this. And I was kind of telling him you know, ‘we’re a rock station. We don’t really know…we’re kind of doing this head on’ and he was like, ‘I’m just telling you right now, okay? This isn’t rocket science, okay? It’s football, okay? It’s 10-yards for a first down, okay? It’s not a lot to it. You’ll be fine. Just one day at a time.’ I said,  ‘thank you, Coach. I appreciate your time.’ He says, ‘You’re very welcome.’

“And that was it. I walked out. That was the first time I had met Bill, and it was…he was really nice. He was a really nice guy. Like, you know, I think he could sense how f***ing nervous I was. And I think he was looking at me like this ‘f***ing college kid,’ you know, nervous, which I was. I was. It was Bill f***ing Parcells. I mean it was like, you know. He was a well-known figure by that point, obviously. won two Super Bowls at that point already. I knew who Bill was and so I was very intimidated, but he could have not have been nicer.

“I remember when they first hired Parcells, they had a t-shirt with the Patriots’ new logo on it and underneath the logo it said, ‘It’s a whole new ball game.’ And this was like a week after they hired Parcells because…he literally brought the region back to football. It was dead here. Completely dead in the 80s. I mean, you know, they had a little success, but for the most part, it was dead and by the early 90s, it was dead in the water. So, he brought football back and belief in the region. He was that guy.”

Super Bowl XXXI (First Super Bowl broadcast doing pre and postgame)

“They had a good run in the playoffs and they got to the Super Bowl and Green Bay at the time was clearly the team to beat. I don’t think anybody really gave them a shot to beat Green Bay, but, you know, they were in the game until the kickoff return and then that kind of changed the whole game. But, you know, and then, obviously the turmoil that came after with Bill… he left after that and didn’t take the team plane back. I wasn’t there as far as taking the team plane at that point, but I just heard that he didn’t take the team playback, which was very unusual. So you knew something was going down. So there was that whole shit show of a storm that was going down in ’96.

“That was my first Super Bowl broadcast. What I remember about Gil (Santos) and Gino (Cappelletti)  that weekend was Gil was obviously very happy to go back to the Super Bowl because he had never done the Super Bowl before, because in 1985 he wasn’t doing the games. So, this was going to be his first time doing it and Gil always wanted to call Super Bowls. He wanted to call the Patriots first Super Bowl. That was a major goal for him. And I remember, I just remember talking to Gil and Gino prior during the week and they were excited to do the game. They were excited to broadcast a Super Bowl after all the years that they’ve been doing the games, they were finally going to get to do a Super Bowl game. Now, they didn’t know – obviously, this was going to be like almost every other year type of thing – nobody knew that at the time. But, at the time, it was a big deal. So, like, I used to have to write notes to Gil and Gino back in the day because Gil didn’t like anybody talking in his ear during the broadcast. He was really old school. And, you know, that just doesn’t work today. Like, there’s so much going on. But, Gil, if you had something to tell Gil, you had to write a note, and then you had to put it in front of him. And then he’d read it and he’d do whatever’s on it, he was fine with it. He didn’t want you talking in his ear. He just didn’t want it. What Gil wanted, Gil got. Nobody’s going to tell Gil how to broadcast and so that’s what we used to do. I used to have like those yellow notepad things and if I had something written out, I would put it in front of him and he’d read it. If something came up, sometimes if he had called the wrong number or something, I would put 23, not blah, blah. And he’d go, ‘oh, beg your pardon’ and he’d switch it on the air. So there was also that type of stuff going on. But, they were excited for the game. We were excited for the game. Obviously, the game didn’t work out, but we were excited that we had done a Super Bowl broadcast.

“Like that was a big deal. I was really happy to be a part of a Super Bowl broadcast. I was like, ‘wow, this is kind of crazy.’ I’m in my mid 20s here doing these broadcasts. And so it was a big deal. It was a good year. It was fun. And I think it certainly helped going forward, and it certainly helped in 2001 starting the Super Bowl run. We had been there before, and we kind of knew what to expect and what to do and so that was a major. It was kind of a dry run for us, kind of. Well, it’s supposed to be the same building. Right, exactly. same building, same everything, but it was kind of a dry run for us. So, like by the time we got there in ’01, I wouldn’t say we were masters of it, but we kind of knew what to expected on what was happening during the week, as far as press conferences, players, media day, timing with how the broadcast was going to go, what stuff to look out for, that type of stuff. And the other bonus was that we were making friends in the league. Like, we had seen somebody (in 2001) and they were like like, ‘oh, we’re back, you guys are back’ You never know when you’re going to be here again and that’s what Gil and Gino took out of it too, which was, ‘we may never get back here.’ So, they treated it like a one-time event because nobody…you never knew you were going to come back.. And I think I was just too young and stupid where I kind of figured, ‘wow, this can’t be it, right?’  I mean, I didn’t really take it for granted. I’m not telling you that. I just never got the feeling like this was it. I thought, like, ‘I’ll be back at some point, right? I’m assuming.’ So, that’s kind of what I remember. It was kind of a dry run more than anything else.”

The Pete Carroll days

“I remember Pete Carroll’s a good guy. I do remember that. I had many conversations with him and he would allow me to do stuff that we certainly didn’t do under Belichick. Nothing really sticks out at all (from Carroll’s tenure) though. He was just very nice to us. Like in the hotel, the team had like, a dining area. And you know, before the games, we’d go to the games early to set up for the broadcast. You could go in there and get breakfast. And Parcells allowed us to do that. So when Carol came in, we didn’t know what to expect, if he was going to allow us to do it. So, we went in there. you know, the broadcast crew Gil and Gino, me, Dennis (Knudsen) and the two parabolic guys. And we just said, ‘well, this is our first road game with Pete, we’re going to find out if this is okay or not.’ So we went in there, we had breakfast or whatever and then all of a sudden, believe it or not, Pete Carroll comes over and we’re like, ‘oh, wow, here we go.’ Pete goes, ‘Hey, guys.’ I go, ‘hey.’  Pete goes, “What’s going on? You guys are the broadcast crew?’ And we go, ‘yeah.’ And he goes ‘oh, okay…you guys normally come in here and eat?’ And he wasn’t being a ball buster. He was just kind of like…testing? Almost testing us.

“We were all standing there, we go, ‘well, Coach, we’re like, you know, uh Coach Parcells allowed us to have breakfast here before we left for the stadium. Is it okay if we do that?’ And he looks at us and he goes, ‘yeah, I don’t care. Just don’t bother my players.’ And we said, ‘Well, we’re out of here before the players even get down here.’ He goes, ‘I don’t care, just, yeah, help yourself.’ And so we were cool with that. And so, you know, that was kind of our interaction…first interaction with Pete at the time, which, you know, again, it’s not a football story, but it’s a behind the scenes story, which kind of means more to me than the other stuff..”

2001 – The Snow Bowl & AFC title game in Pittsburgh

“There was serious talk…They were 1-3 and I remember, Bill Belichick was already on the hot seat. There was talk on the team bus after they went 1-3, that they were going to shit can Belichick. Just a conversation between staff and a bunch of people – without giving names away – that they may can Belichick tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. Monday morning…but, I remember the St. Louis game, that was the turning point. They were right around .500 at the time. And St. Louis was obviously the team to beat that year, and the game plan going into that (Sunday night) game was fairly simple. It beat them up because they played physical, which is the same way they played in the Super Bowl when they played them in 2001. They lost, but they played close. And there was a confidence Bill instilled in the team because they played St. Louis, that way. They believed they could play with anybody.. You could feel like there was a difference, as far as the team confidence wise…We were believing and then they just kept winning and winning. Like, I thought they were good, but I never dreamed that they were going to get to the Super Bowl and like, beyond. Like, I thought, ‘oh, we’re going to have a good year, get in the playoffs, maybe win a game, you know, progress, you know, blah, blah, blah.’ I had no, no idea.

“Now, Gil knew. Gil’s like, ‘this team’s ready to win the f***ing Super Bowl.’ During that run, Gil says ‘they’re good enough to win the f***ing Super Bowl.’ And Gino was like, ‘yeah, they’re on a roll.’ That’s Gino in a nutshell. Gino would say, ‘yeah, they’re on a roll’ and, when we’re going to dinner on Saturday, these are the conversations we talk about.We talk about the team, we talk about what’s going on. And Gino was probably a little hesitant, but he still believed that they could win. Gil knew, like, Gil, he called it. So he was very confident.

“Before that was obviously The Snow Bowl. I remember a lot from that day.I remember driving in and it had not started snowing yet. There was talk there was snow coming, but they didn’t know exactly – if I remember correctly – how bad it was going to be. I always get to the stadium early. I’m always there, typically, probably three, four hours before the game. And so, it was the last game at Foxboro Stadium. So, I came extra early because I kind of wanted to soak it all in. I always come extra early because I want to avoid traffic and I like being here because you get in there, you set up. Nobody in the booth. You get to set up your stuff, you’re ready to go, and then, during the course of a broadcast day, shit comes up. This happens, or this happens, or this happens, and you’ve got to deal with certain stuff. And the more that I’ve gotten in this job now, my responsibilities have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. My phone’s ringing for this, my phone’s ringing for that. I’m getting phone calls about,’ oh, we’re traveling Thursday rather than Saturday.’ And this is like before the game. And then I’m getting a thing, ‘oh, I need a pass for blah, blah, blah.’ I’m doing that. Now, back then in ’01, I wasn’t doing that type of stuff, but I just wanted to get there early. So I got there early. So, this was when I used to smoke. And so Gil used to smoke too. And so Gino would drive him f***ing bananas Because Dennis (Knudsen), our engineer, was smoking too. So we’d all be in a booth – and I’m telling you right now, and I’m not even lying – the booth was no wider than where you are from where I am right here, and it went like to the bottom of the stairs, like in length. Like, when you open the door, people had to leave the booth to get in. So, we got there early and I was there with Dennis and we were out in the stands because they had the door that walked out to the stands in the press box, the old press box. So, you could walk outside and you could have a cigarette outside. So, I went outside and I had a cigarette and I was out there with Dennis, and it just started to snow and we said, ‘oh, this is going to a doozy,’ because this is two hours before the game. It’s a light snow. It’s not a heavy snow, it’s like it’s floating down. But, it was coming and it wasn’t stopping. So, you knew it was only going to get worse.

“In the press box back then, there was a smoking section and it was in the back. And that’s where Gil sat. So that’s where I sat too, because I’d have a cigarette with Gil in the back. And so we’d have a press meal. We’d sit in the back. So I sat in the back. I was back there with Gil, and then Gino came, then Ron Hobson came. This was the last game of Foxboro Stadium, so I was there with Gil. Gino shows up, sits at the table, and that was a long table. It was like a long table. It’s probably about eight, nine people who could stay at the table. So at first, it was just Gil finishing out his notes and stuff. And I was sitting next to him and I was talking to him and I was asking him what if he needs anything, blah, blah, blah. He says, ‘no, no, I’m just right.’ Gil had his own system. He had his whole thing set up and you didn’t have to tell Gil nothing. He set the whole thing up. It was his show. And you were just there for the ride. And it was great. So, I go and I had dinner. I sat down next to him, and he was doing his charts and he was eating as he was doing the charts, finishing up his charts. They were pretty much done, but he was adding some extra stuff. And then Gino came over and he started eating. Then Ron Hobson came over and he started eating. Then Will McDonough came over. Okay? So, now it’s Gil, Gino, Ron Hobson, Will McDonough, and then Kevin Mannix came over from the Herald. So those five guys and me, that was it. So, there were six people at that table. They sat there for an hour and a half and I didn’t move. And they were telling Patriot stories from when they first started and when the stadium was first built, and they were talking about how they did a bathroom break test where they had people all around the thing and they had a flush of toilets at the same time to see if the plumbing worked. They literally went and had people all around the stadium. They all flushed at the exact same time to see if the thing was going to work. So, they were all talking there. So, I’m sitting at the table, I’m sitting at the table with all these guys.

“Now, all these guys at that table. were all guys that were there from day one. Ron Hobson covered the team since 1960. Will was with the team since 1960. Kevin Mannix covered the team in the mid-60s. Gil was there in the mid 60s. Gino was the player playing in the 60s. They were all there, and they were all telling their football stories. And they were all telling how they started and how they, you know, how the organization came up and blah, blah, blah. And I just sat there thinking, ‘these guys are the five most prominent guys to talk about Patriots football with.’ And again, another moment where, it’s the last night of Foxboro Stadium and I’m sitting with these five guys and they’re telling their football Patriots. And you could start to appreciate it at the time. And I loved every minute. That’s why I never got up. I knew the moment. I knew that right there was another moment. I knew not to leave. Like, ‘don’t leave this. Like, sit here, wait it out,’ you know? And so I did. And so those guys would tell the stories and I would ask questions from time to time and they would bring something up or they would answer the questions. They were all very nice people. They were great. All of them great. I just remember that. I remember having a cigarette out here. I remember having a cigarette with Dennis before the game and it started snowing.  I remember that vividly, and then I remember that dinner, the last dinner that we had before the game.

“The game wasn’t great. I remember that. It was sloppy. Nobody could do anything. Tuck rule. All sorts of stuff. We thought, you know, we thought the game was over. The Tuck rule, we thought for sure it was all over. They said, there’s no way. We looked at the replay. We had a small TV of the thing in there. It looked like, you know, we got strip sacked and the game was going to be over. You can hear it in Gil’s voice. You can hear it in Gil’s voice how excited he was with the overturn. And so when they overturned it and Gil goes, ‘all right! And we’re back!’ And then, you know, they go down and you have Vinatieri’s kick. We couldn’t see it from where we were. We literally couldn’t see it. I don’t know if Gil said it at that time, but he said it another time, but I don’t know if he said it in that broadcast. I’d have to go back and listen to it where he said ‘the crowd will let you know if he made it or not.’ So we’re way up there now and so Gil’s like, ‘look, it’s going to be hard for us to call this.’ So, we had our binoculars, and even with their binoculars, you couldn’t see anything. The crowd goes bananas and then of course we knew it was good. And Gil knew it was good. I had no idea. Itt was just crazy. We couldn’t believe it. I thought it was easily the best kick I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, to this day, I have no idea how he made that kick. I mean, I just don’t know how he made it. How do you not slip, No. 1. Like, the kick was low. You know, and I’ve talked to Vinatieri about this multiple times, seeing him over the years in the Super Bowl and stuff and he was more worried about – from what he told me – was getting the ball there. Like, he was worried about not coming up short. That’s basically what it was. And so, you know, he was like, ‘I just need to get the ball there. So, they won the game and I felt like they had no business winning. No. And, you know, the Raiders got robbed. They felt like they got robbed, but this was payback from 1976.

“The AFC Championship game…If you remember in Pittsburgh. They’re supposed to lose. They were supposed to get blown out. And Gil said the night before the thing: ‘they’re gonna f***ing win tomorrow.. He goes, ‘they’re gonna stick it right up Pittsburgh’s ass.’ Well, that’s what they did. I mean, that’s exactly what they did. And you could hear it in Gil’s calls when he’s calling the Troy Brown punt return, you could tell in Gil’s voice if you listen back to it, you know, he was extra excited, not because they were going to go to the Super Bowl, but because tt was because everything he thought was going to come true coming true. He was spot on. And he was f***ing dead right.

“What I remember about that trip was there was no bye. So, back then they had an AFC championship party.  They don’t do that anymore. So. the Saturday night, we went out to dinner and this was a big deal. Everybody that was part of the broadcast of the game went to this thing. It was a big deal. I met Joe Namath that night because Gil and Gino were there and Joe Namath was there and Joe Namath came over and said hello to Gino. And, you know, they knew each other from their playing days. So, Gino introduced me to Joe Namath. I remember shaking Joe Namath’s hand and going, ‘oh, my God, Joe Namath.’ And he, you know I’m like, ‘wow, is Joe Namath,’ right? And so, that’s what I remember vividly prior to the game, was meeting Joe Namath at the AFC championship party. But, we had a great dinner and Joe talked to us for a while when he was there and I remember that vividly. That was kind of for Saturday night, as far as Sunday, I was concerned.

“We just said, ‘look, it’s one game. Anything’s possible.’ I didn’t think they were going to win. I was believing what everybody else was telling us, which was, we’re not going to go to Pittsburgh and win this game.. But, Gil believed they’re going to win. And he said that Saturday night. He goes, ‘they’re going to win this game. I’m telling you that right now. I said, ‘Gil, I hope so.’ I wanted to go back to a Super Bowl.. You know? Going into the game, the team was very confident. They went in with loads of confidence. They were flying high throughout the whole season. Like, they were ready to go. And so they had the confidence in it. I just didn’t know if they could pull it off in Pittsburgh because Pittsburgh still had the mystique. They were 14-2. I think that year. And so, Bledsoe has to come in and that was the whole thing. Like, Brady goes down and we’re going, ‘oh, no.’ But, it wasn’t really that bad because it was like, ‘okay, we got Bledsoe. It’s not like we’re bringing in Joe Schmo.’ you know? It’s like ‘Bledsoe’s good, he might not be better than Brady, but he’s still good.’ At the end of the day, like, Bledsoe got them there in reality. I mean, he took over the game and played extremely well. And then, there was talk going into the Super Bowl. Who’s going to play? Who’s going to play QB? They were worried about, you know, Brady’s ankle at the time.”

Super Bowl XXXVI

“We got back from Pittsburgh at like 11 o’clock or something like that. And we were told we need to be back in Foxborough at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. I forget what it was. And so it was a quick turnaround. You basically had to go home at 11 o’clock and pack for a week and then you had to be down at Foxboro by 7 o’clock in the morning. So, I remember going home and packing for a week and thinking, ‘shit, we’re leaving for the Super Bowl tomorrow.’ What I remember about that day vividly, is that when we got on the team plane, we flew out to New Orleans and then we took the bus to the team hotel and then as soon as we got to the team hotel, I was told that Belichick’s having a press conference as soon as we get there. So, I couldn’t even go to my room. I had to grab my bag and go to the press conference. I had to go to like, the ballroom, which is where the press conference was set up. So, Bill came out like, you know, and I got there just in time before he came out and he did an opening press conference. And what I remember about that press conference was how everything was set up. They had this really nice setup. and then in the back, they had a buffet. They had coffee, drinks, sandwiches, and stuff like this. You felt like you’re at the Super Bowl. Right. It was like, ‘oh, like this isn’t just something ordinary.’  It felt important and in the moment it felt important. And so, Bill did his press conference on Monday and then Tuesday was going to be Media Day.

“Now, Media Day back then was at the stadium.. And it was at 11-to-12 and then you’d eat lunch from 12-to-1 and then there’s the second team, which is 1-to-2. I forget if the Patriots were first or second, I want to say they were first, but I could be wrong. And so, we went to New Orleans. We went to the Superdome to do Media Day, which was during the day at that time. And I remember how many people were there and it was on the field, which was great. That was my first time at the Superdome. So I kind of was like, ‘holy shit. wow, this place is huge.’ I remember during that week, that, you know, media thing was over, and then we were off on Tuesday night, and then Tuesday night I got shitfaced at Hurricane O’Reilly’s. Like, absolutely trashed. That was like the first night I could really like, drink while I was there. And so I was totally banged up. The problem was, I had to cover St. Louis that week. So, I had to cover a Mike Martz press conference at like 8 o’clock at their team hotel the next day. Now, I got back to our hotel at like, I don’t know, 12, one, and I was completely trashed. Now I had to get up. Seven hours. six hours later and I was still hungover. So I called the cab to get to their hotel. And I remember covering Mike Martz’ 8 o’clock press conference. I remember leaving completely hungover and like, ready to fall asleep. I just remember that whole week riding up to it was experiencing the Super Bowl again, not like in 1996, but really kind of appreciating it, going, ‘oh, you may not get back here again.’ The way it was set up was definitely better than it was in ’96. You had a 9/11 stuff to deal with, too…but, during the week, though, that wasn’t necessarily a thing, it was when you got to the stadium, but it wasn’t necessarily, I mean, it was a big story, obviously at the Super Bowl, but as far as covering the Super Bowl, it wasn’t a really…it wasn’t really that big of a factor. It was more security. You know, you had to go through more loopholes for security wise, but overall, it wasn’t…it didn’t change the week of the Super Bowl.

“On game day I remember I was nervous. I remember. 14. point dogs. I was worried about the broadcast and I was worried about…I just wanted to make sure that the broadcast was going to go according to plan. Because in 1996, remember, I wasn’t doing the game broadcast. I was doing pre and post game. So this was my first time producing a true Super Bowl. All I could think was ‘don’t f*** it up.’ We had a lot of advertising money involved in it and so I was really concerned about it. But, I remember what Gil told me the night before the game. Gil said to me, at dinner, Saturday night before the game he goes: ‘How you feeling?’ I said, ‘Gil, I gotta be honest with you. I’m a little nervous.’ He goes, “Don’t be nervous. You’ll be fine.’ And he goes – he told me this tip and I and I never forgot it because it’s so accurate –  And all the Super Bowls that we did after, I thought about this the same amount of times – he goes, ‘look at tomorrow like it’s week three. Produce the game tomorrow like we’re playing week three in Jacksonville. Don’t do anything different. Don’t’ try to overdo it. Don’t try to oversell it. Don’t try to over… just produce the broadcast. And if you just produce the broadcast, it’ll come out great. Trust me.’

“And so I did. I went into my first Super Bowl broadcast in 01 thinking ‘just do a regular broadcast like it’s week three.’ I’ve told other guys that have asked me about covering the Super Bowl for the first time, I’ve told them that same thing. Like the guy from Philadelphia, I can’t think of his name offhand, but he’s been there twice now, three times now. But he goes, ‘what do you recommend? I said, ‘I’ll tell you what I recommend. Gil told me just what I’m going to tell you: Treat it like it’s week three and you’ll be less nervous.’ I think it took the heat and the pressure off because I was like, ‘well, I can do week three in my sleep.’ You know what I mean? Like, I was worried about what I needed to do more because of the Super Bowl and Gil flat out demolished that and just said, ‘you don’t need to do anything long. Just do the regular broadcast. We’re going to call the game. The game itself is going to sell itself. We don’t need to do anything spectacular on this broadcast.’ We didn’t and it went as smoothly as it could go. It was a great game, obviously.

“Even when they were up 17-3, I was thinking, ‘no, this game’s not over. I’ll never forget it. These guys can come back and win this game at any point. So, we were nervous, you know, we were 14 points ahead, and we’re about to win our first Super Bowl of all time. Like, the Patriots are going to win the f***ing Super Bowl. Like, this is insanity. But, St. Louis started to come back, and then I started having my doubts. Then, they tied the game. I was like, this whole magic run is going to end. We were this close to winning the f***ing Super Bowl. And so, there was a minute and 40 left  in the fourth quarter. And, you know, the talk was, ‘are they going to kneel it down or are they going to go for the drive?’ I thought that they were just going to kneel it down and then play for overtime. I thought that’s kind of where it was going. I thought that we were going to OT, but they clearly made the right call. They drove, and they drove, and they drove and they drove, and then it came down to the kick.

“What I remember about the kick more than anything else was seven seconds left, and they were down there and was Gil was sitting here. Gino was sitting here in front of our stats guy…now, what was different is Gil and Gino wanted to sit side by side with each other for this game. I don’t know why. I think it was just because they had a feeling? They had a feeling, or they just, you know, they kind of just wanted to, I don’t know, be next to each other broadcasting. So, back then, you know, I was behind Gino, I wasn’t in front because we had a statistician. Now (today) I’m doing the stats. I’m doing the spotting.. I’m producing the thing. So I’m doing all these things now. It’s a totally different setup broadcast wise. I’ve got a lot more responsibilities now than I did back in those days. Back then, I just had to produce the thing. Now I got to do stats. I got to do spotting any information that’s coming in, records, anything like that…Luckily, we have a couple of people in the booth that help you with that. Okay. But anyway, to get back to the kick, what I remember about the kick is that Gil was here, Gino was here, and I was like in-between both of them.

“And so, like literally Gil was right here and he was calling the thing and I was like right here. And I was just, I had my hands on his knees and I was like, I was basically like (bending over) and Gino was right here and Gil was right here. Gil was calling his famous call and I remember he just kicked it through and Gino shot up and he, like, lunged for Gil as he was finishing up his thing. Then, I step back at that point and then we all kind of like, group hugged. But Gil and Gino had a first hug when they first called it out and it was, it was kind of a special moment because they had, you know, they had seen the worst of this. And Gil wanted to do this more than anything. He’d finally called a winner. And I think that was a big day for Gil, obviously. It was a big day for all of us. But, going on the field and then the confetti down there, and it was just like that feeling of, ‘oh my God, they won the Super Bowl.’ And you just…it was a different experience. But, it was a great experience. It was like, ‘wow, we’re never going to forget this.’ It’s probably one of my favorites.”

Super Bowl XXXVIII and Super Bowl XXXIX (Yes, it’s a dynasty)

“They were a dominant team in 2003 and 2004. Yeah, I thought the 04 team was – I’d probably say that that was the best team that they had out of the early part of the dynasty. I thought that they could play any way possible. They could play physical, they could play finesse. They could score points, they could play defense. Brady was really getting into his stride at that point. I felt like he was in a real groove. As good as the 2003 team was – and they don’t get a lot of credit – the ’04 team was even better. The fact that they only beat Philly by three, I thought was a miracle. They weren’t even on the same level. Like, that game should have been like 40-3. I mean, the two teams weren’t even close. They were that good. Getting to call back-to-back titles, that meant everything to Gil and Gino. That meant, first of all, that meant for the third time they were calling a winner. And so, it was a dynasty. Gil said, ‘yes, it’s a dynasty!’ That’s his famous line. We just couldn’t believe how good it was going. You know? I remember sitting with Gino on the team bus going back to the hotel after the game and I remember Gino says, ‘I would have never have thought of this.’ Like, we just never envisioned this franchise winning three out of four Super Bowls. You’d think of winning one Super Bowl in your lifetime, maybe. But, winning three out of four? Like, just insanity.

“They made me appreciate it more because I could tell on their faces how they were reacting, this was a special moment. Not that you didn’t know it was special, you clearly knew it was special. But you could just tell like, this is like a once in a lifetime type of thing, which it was. How many teams win three out of four? The ’03 game was a total shootout… I remember Tim Fox, who was doing our pregame and post at the time, was in our booth at that point. And he was standing behind me in our booth and I remember him saying when Carolina took the lead late in the fourth quarter, ‘the Patriots are gassed. They just look totally gassed.’ Not that Carolina didn’t, because they were looking gassed too. I was like, ‘well, they could be, but they just kept coming. Brady led them down, got the tying touchdown. They got the ball back again, and then Vinatieri came down and kicked another winner after missing one earlier. That ’03 team was good. They don’t get a lot of credit. They really should because they were really good. The 04 team, though, that was…they were special. I thought they, between that team and the 2014 team, those were the two best teams that I think that I’ve covered in 31 years. Those are the two best teams I thought, by far.”

2007 (Santos called it)

“Every year we did a prediction thing for what their record was going to be before the season started. We all chipped in like $25 and whoever’s closest would win the money. So, the first week of the season. Our stat guy at the time would hand out sheets and you’d pay 25 bucks, and you’d put down wins and losses for each game. In 2007, We knew how good they were. We knew how good they were going to be. They were loaded. I had 14-2 and Gino had like 13-3. Dennis had this. Gil? 16-0. He had 16-0. And I looked at the thing and I go, ‘Gil, come on.’ He goes, ‘I’m just telling you right now, Marc. they’re going to go f***ing 16-0. He called it. They went f***ing 16-0. I remember that like it was yesterday. That was week one. I remember that vividly. He had it written down and he had a W next to every f***ing game. And I reminded him before the Super Bowl that year, I said, ‘G, you had 16’ and he goes, ‘damn fucking right I did!’ He goes, “They’re  going to win the whole f***ing thing.’

“During the year we knew it was special. Did we know it was going to be 19-0 possibly? No. they should have lost both of them. They should have lost a few of them.. Baltimore. There was three or four games…there the Buffalo game they should have lost, too. They got lucky in Buffalo. So nobody was expecting that type of season. We know how good they were. We knew that they could go win the Super Bowl, but nobody was thinking they could go 19-0. That didn’t come until later, when they were like 12-0, 13-0. Then it was like, okay. They always talked about it, but the talk picked up when it became more realistically possible, you were that close..

“So, the Super Bowl itself wasn’t great. It wasn’t a great game. It was kind of a boring game, if you want the truth. It was Brady running for his life basically. And they really couldn’t get anything going offensively, which is really frustrating because of how good they were. But, what I remember about that was, I felt like they were tapped out. I thought that all the pressure, everything had gotten to them at that point. I thought there wasn’t much left. I don’t think there was a lot left when that game came. I thought they were mentally tapped out. They could have won the game. They should have won the game. I just thought, I think they were mentally tapped out. I just think there was so much pressure. It was just unbearable. And then the final thing that I remember about the game besides the (David Tyree) catch was when they had lost, I remember walking down because I had to do the post-game stuff. I remember walking on the field and as I was walking, the Giants were still celebrating. I remember specifically that the confetti was still falling and I remember walking across the field and the confetti was still coming down. like in a very slow. not heavy, just like, just like slow, drippy thing. I remember walking by and I had my recorder with me and I was going to record the thing. And I remember watching them celebrating and I remember saying to myself, ‘man, we were that close to the perfect season.’ We were that close to the perfect season.

“That regular season game didn’t help either. I remember the record setting touchdown (between Moss and Brady in the season finale) was a big deal, too. Like a lot of people talking about the 16-0, but there was a lot of talk – and we certainly talked about it before the game – making sure that we had the call. We were on it. Gil knew what was going on. But, you know, we were definitely just talking before the game that we wanted to nail it because we knew it was a special year. So we wanted the broadcast to be special. We wanted the record call to be special obviously. So, we just, we paid attention and eventually we knew that the next catch was going to be the record setting one. So, we were well aware of it, but it was definitely on the horizon during the game…that’s what I remember most out of that game was the record setting play. I remember how good the Giants were and I remember thinking when we played in the Super Bowl, ‘well, these guys are pretty good.’ I thought they were going to win, though. I didn’t think they were going to lose, but I thought the Giants weren’t going to just roll over. I thought they were going to find a way to win against them because my theory was, ‘okay, you can’t come this far and lose,’ but they did.

Brady’s ACL

“So, coming off a year that they lost in the Super Bowl and they lost the undefeated season, the expectations were that they were going to come back in 2008 and get back there and win it. Then, we played here, opening day against Kansas City and that whole thing abruptly ended in one play. As soon as he went down, we knew his knee was blown out. He was done for the year and there was an outside chance of thinking, ‘okay, well, the team is so good, we might be able to make a run still.’ People still had a lot of confidence in Belichick that we could still make the playoffs and with a little bit of luck, who knows? But, we knew right away that he was done, even though Bill was playing guessing games with the media for like two weeks. Ridiculous. Like, they knew. I talked to several people that were close by. They knew like, the minute they went out there. So, it was a season where they thought they were going to at least get back to the playoffs and get in and maybe have a chance and it didn’t work out. The whole season was basically done in week one. It was basically over. Bill did his best to try to keep everybody afloat that they could still win without Tom, but everybody knew, like, it was what it was, you’re not replacing that guy.

“Gil was bullshit. Gino was obviously upset, too. I mean, I think we all knew, you know, we all knew that the season in theory was pretty much over. I think everybody knew. It wasn’t really that we weren’t coming up with anything new that nobody else was. Everybody knew the exact same thing. But, you know, Gil was definitely more vocal about it. Gino was kind of more of a laid back guy, but that’s how Gino was. It took a lot to get something out of Gino, but I think everybody knew the season was done in week one. It was kind of a bummer because we had just lost, they had just lost, I should say, they had just lost the undefeated season. So, you’re kind of anxious to get back. I remember. It was all gone in 20 seconds.”

The Dynasty – Part II – Socci joins the crew

“So, Gil retired in 2013. He got pretty sick and  he got pneumonia and he wasn’t feeling well. And he just, you know…it wasn’t going to be able to work out or he wasn’t going to be able to do the games anymore. So, you know, he had to retire and that was an emotional thing. It was also emotional for me because it was kind of like the end of an era, you know?  It was like we’re turning over the broadcast, you know, to two new guys. Zo was already there for a year, maybe two? He was doing sideline and then he was in the booth with Gil for one season or two doing color…I was a little bit bummed because it was like, you know, this is, you know, I worked with it for almost 20 years, so I was worried about, ‘okay, who’s the next guy we’re going to bring in?’ ‘Who is going to be as good as Gil?’ I don’t think he’s going to be as good as Gil, but like, you know…what type of guy is he going to be? I got along so well with Gil. Am I going to get along with this guy? Like, is he going to be workable? You don’t know what to expect. So, when Gil retired, they were taking, they were taking tapes and they were listening to the tapes.

“I got called in a couple of times and they said ‘hey, what do you think of this guy? And blah, blah, blah. And I remember Bob Socci called me. He called me, like really when the stuff got going. And I didn’t know who Bob was at all. Bob called me up and said that you know, he’s the play-by-play guy for Navy and he was asking me what the process was and if it was doable. Like, ‘do I have a shot at this thing?’ And I said to Bob, I said, ‘yeah, you absolutely have a shot. Why not? You’ve been doing Navy for 13 years.’ Now, I didn’t literally listen to a whole lot of Bob. I was just going by, well, you know, anybody’s got a shot. If you’re good enough, you got a shot. So, I know if he had done Navy for 13 years, he clearly was a good play by play guy. So I just said, ‘yeah, it’s worth sending me stuff.’ And you had to send it to a GM at the time. So, he sent it in and Bob became one of the finalists and I remember my general manager came to me and said, ‘uh, you know, we got like three guys that I want.’ The Patriots also wanted to have a say in who was going to call their games…at that time, once I had heard (Socci) was in the fold, I started listening, just to get a general feel of how he calls a game. And I thought he was excellent…so, you know, we hired Bob and Bob’s been a home run. I mean, he’s just knocked it out of the park. You can never replace a guy like Gil, but Bob’s come in and he’s just, he’s done an excellent job. He’s had some really good calls, and he’s well prepared. He’s great. I kind of knew almost right away (the relationship between he, Socci and Zolak would work).

“Because, what happened was when Bob finally got the job, we had met over here at this seafood restaurant in Patriot Place…we went over there because I wanted to go over the broadcast with him. I wanted to go over the entire broadcast with him. What we do, how we do it, what’s expected of him – as far as broadcast wise, play-by-play – I said nothing about his play-by-play stuff. That’s all on him. I gave him a couple tips here and there, but his broadcasting was all good. He didn’t need any help. I just wanted to get him aware of how the broadcast runs, how many breaks we take, when are we doing this? When are we doing that? I wanted to have a full feel of the broadcast, so he’s not going in surprised. We had a four-hour conversation. We sat over there for four hours. I gave him the whole land. It wasn’t even about the broadcast. I talked to him about the company. I talked to him about the Patriots. I talked to him about what the team expects from us, what the travel situation was. I went through the whole thing with him. It was long. It might not have been four hours, but it was a long time. We went through it. I went through everything extensively with him. So, by the time he got out of there, he had a general idea of exactly what to expect. And he has told me since, looking back, he goes, ‘I’m glad we had that conversation because I left there going, wow, this is a shitload of information here, but I felt like everything that came up to me after that conversation, I was kind of ready for it because when I saw it, I was like, oh, yeah, Mar  kind of mentioned this.’ Or, ‘yeah, I was told this or I was shown that.’

“So at the time, he thought it was an overload of information, which it probably was. But looking back at it, he was happy because when the situations came up, he was ready to go. But, in that conversation, I knew that Bob and I would be able to get along very well because, you know, we had a great conversation. It was long. He was very nice. We had a lot of similarities. He told me about his background in minor league ball and with Navy. We were talking about Navy football because I’m interested in the military and I love Navy. And so, we were getting into all of that. I knew almost right away. Even before we started the broadcast. like preseason-wise, I knew that we’d be fine. Our first broadcast ran about as smooth as it could go. Bob was excellent and I just remember thinking going home…I said, ‘oh, this is going to work.’ After the first game. I said it again, ‘oh, this is going to work.’ Like, I got nothing to worry about. This guy’s a pro. Bob was a pro from day one and he’s only gotten better, actually. Gil would say that to me all the time, ‘don’t judge a guy based on his first broadcast. Judge him on his last broadcast.’ It’s like when we hired Judge Sirott for the Bruins or Ryan Johnston for the Bruins too…if you listen to their first broadcast and then you listen to their 82nd broadcast of that same year, I know it’s night and day…broadcasting is a lot like driving. The more you do, the better you get at it. So, the more reps you have, the better you get at it.

“That’s why Bob was so good out of the gate because he had done Navy football for 13 years. He knew the game. He knew football. He was ready to go. If you could make Navy entertaining, then you can do just about anything.”

Deflategate

“The week leading up was a total shit show. The whole week down there (at Gillette) the thing was a complete and utter shit show every day. The volume of people, there were news outlets from every station there. There was CNN, Fox News was there, Obviously you had channels 4, 5 and 7. Fox 25. New Hampshire, Rhode Island. There must have been 30 cameras in there. And every day, because everybody wanted to know what is the latest going on with this deflateating thing.? Brady comes out, Belichick comes out, Belichick does his best to try to..’look, I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’ Brady comes out and he’s got this half ass smile on his face and he clearly knows more than anybody’s leading on. So,  the questions are going rapidly, but I just remember that whole week was a shit show. And I thought – and I was thinking to myself – ‘we haven’t even got to Arizona yet.’ Like, what is this? Now we’re going into a Super Bowl. Like, this is just local. What are we going to get into when we go to Arizona?

“So then, when we get out to Arizona, they had a press conference right away as soon as we get to the hotel. I think it was like, as soon as we got there, maybe an hour after or something, because I remember it was another situation where I was running to get to the thing when we got off the plane. And I remember Kraft, I think if I remember correctly, Robert Kraft had a presser, he went on before. He went on before Bill and he just stated that they were looking into things and you know, he was trying to do his best to say, ‘look, we’re preparing for the Super Bowl. We’ve got a Super Bowl here to win.’ The team really tried their best, certainly during the locker room time period. They were clearly told by Bill and some saying, ‘we’re not talking about it.’ The players at that point were talking about, ‘hey, look, we’re getting ready for the Super Bowl. I’m not interested in this deflate thing.’

“They did a good job of trying to deflect, but I mean, it was a total shit show, though. And then the week down there was a shit show too. Every press conference that Bill did or Brady did or the players did, it was way more attention than Seattle was getting at that point. They were getting typical Super Bowl coverage, but the main focus was the Patriots. Like the Media Day, everything we did was all Patriots and for two weeks straight, it was the story. So, then the ‘Mona Lisa Vito’ press conference too…it was random, but I remember that. It was totally random. And the whole thing that came out of it was, you know, nobody was expecting any of that. We didn’t, that that presser was going to turn into the famous thing it’s become. Walking out of there, we were like, ‘Jesus.’ But going in,  you just thought it was going to be another press conference where the media’s going to be hounding and they were going to give some sort of bullshit answers and then that would have been the end of it. I just remember thinking how much that story took off after that press conference of the Mona Lisa thing and it was just like…it kind of had like a life of its own and it kind of just took off.

Super Bowl XLIX

“This was my first Super Bowl with both Bob and Zo. What I remember was it was two teams going toe-to-toe. And what I remember going into the game was Seattle was the team of the future. They had already won in 2013. They were trying to go back-to-back, which would have been the first team since the 03-04 Patriots. So they were like, the next team. So, going into the game, we knew it was going to be a brawl. We knew it was going to be an absolute brawl and we knew the Patriots were up for it because the Patriots have always been a tough team, mostly. We didn’t know how epic the game was going to be, but we knew the game was going to be a good football game. The broadcast was going well. It was a great football game. Fantastic. They were down 14 in the late third or something like that. Or whatever it was, fourth quarter, whatever it was.

“I remember saying to my engineer, Dennis, on the thing during the broadcast while these guys were talking. I said, ‘this is going to be a tall order, man, because this defense is nasty.’ And, you know, you’re asking a lot for 14 points in one quarter. Fast forward a bit and you get that catch down the sideline by Seattle. The first thing we thought was, ‘oh, here we go. It’s Tyree all over again.’ I thought we cooked. I thought we were done. I thought Seattle’s just going out and they’re going to win the football game. Then they get down to the goal line…they get down to the goal line and we all are thinking, ‘it’s Lynch.’ Now, they ran Lynch once and Hightower stopped him at the line and we said, ‘okay, well, you can’t do this four times.’ And we were all waiting. And if you listen to Bob’s call, you could tell in his voice he was waiting for the score. We were waiting to lose the game. We could feel like they were ready to lose the game. So, we’re waiting for Lynch to go in and I remember Belichick – as he talks about – he walked down the sidelines. Belichick was practically at the goal line. He was practically at the goal line and he had his hands folded, and he he says he didn’t call time out because he said something didn’t feel right. What’s that mean? Some say it’s a rip on Pete Carroll and some say he saw something that he saw on tape and so, he let the thing go. I think he also let it go because, why are we going to stop and let them rethink what’s going on here?

“So I remember, because where our broadcast booth was was we were on the 20 down here and they were going in. So basically, like…we’re looking dead at it..t felt like time stopped. It felt like time stopped because there was so much buildup. This is the game. This is a Super Bowl. This is a world championship. And the time, it’s like…it stopped. Wilson goes back and he throws the ball and he gets picked off by Butler and all hell breaks loose. Zo goes bananas. Bob’s going bananas. I’m going bananas on Bob. Bob’s in the middle of his call. And I’m like…I’m like shaking him. I was like ‘I can’t believe what just happened.’ Zo is going bananas, and I’m trying to hold Zo back. Like ‘don’t talk over Bob’s call!’ I’m like, ‘let Bob – and you know Zo – he can’t control himself. But, how do you control that situation in the booth at that point? In that moment? We knew how big the moment was. So, I was trying to let Bob do his call, which he pretty much did, but Zo was doing his thing. And, you know, Zo’s larger than life.. You know, he’s a character. You know, he’s the character of the broadcast. He was going bananas, and then Bob finished his call and then Zo’s famous call, which was, ‘this is one of the dumbest calls I’ve ever seen in my entire life’ or something of that nature. But he said ‘dumbest call.’ He had no voice. If you listen to the call, he had no voice left because we were going bananas. We couldn’t believe what just took place. We just couldn’t believe that that ball was picked off and we were watching the replay four or five times to really understand what the hell happened.

“They just lined up and they were going to kneel it down at that point, so we kind of had a chance to kind of catch our breath. But, you know, for that five minutes or seven minutes, it kind of brought me back to when Vinatieri kicked the field goal in 2001, the booth was so crazy. It was all over the place. Everybody’s trying to be happy, but we’re still on the air and I’m trying to do this thing with Bob, and I’m kind of holding on to him and it’s like,  ‘oh my God, this is unbelievable.’ and at the same time, you’re thinking, ‘oh my God they’re going to win the Super Bowl again.’ Right. And this is the first Super Bowl they won since 2004…Like, I just remember it vividly because at the time, the crowd was kind of low because I think everybody kind of knew what was about to happen. Everybody just thought that Lynch was going to get the ball. And the game was over, but it didn’t happen.

“It was unreal.”

28-3

“Bob and Zo were spot on that night, but I could tell in the beginning of the game…the one thing that I noticed right away in the beginning of the first quarter was how fast Atlanta was. They were fast. They had speed. They had like, everything you needed to win the game. So, that was the one thing I remember in the beginning of the game was how good Atlanta was. They certainly were better than I expected. I didn’t think Atlanta was going to be that good. They were really good. I mean, they were really good. I remember when Brady got picked off for the pick six to make it whatever it was at that point – you had the famous picture of him on the ground in some news papers – I said, ‘game’s over.’ I wasn’t a big Katy Perry fan, but I remember her show, though. She came from the top of the dome and she came down. I do remember that, yeah. I just remember at halftime saying, ‘you know, we’re walking into a stone wall’ because nobody was expecting what we saw. And that’s kind of, you know…it just didn’t look good.

“During the comeback, the vibe in the booth was, ‘what was Atlanta doing?’ They’re up 28-3 and they’re throwing the ball around. Like, what are you doing? I remember just telling to Bob and Zo during the break and even during the game…I talked to Zo in the middle of the game going, ‘why are they not just running the ball?’ It’s the end of the third quarter. You don’t need to score any more points. Just run the clock out and you win the Super Bowl. But, you’ve Matt Ryan out there. taking four step drops and they’re throwing the ball downfield and incomplete passes and the clocks stopping and I’m talking to Dennis in the back and I’m going, ‘dude, why are they stopping the clock?’ Run the ball. Run, run, run. Punt. Run, run, run, punt. Like, you don’t need to do anything else.. And so, that was what was going on in the booth. Then, Patriots are starting to make all these plays. You know, They get a strip stack to really turn the whole thing around. That was really the turning point. That was the turning point of the comeback. was him strip sacking Ryan and they get in the fumble and they got the ball. Now you get belief. 28-12, You got belief at that point.

“We just couldn’t believe it. Then, when they came back and we went down a score, I go, ‘holy shit. We’re like, back in the game.’ If they got a shot to win this game again. And, you know, they get the Edelman catch and they eventually tied it up even after thinking they might get shit luck again with another miraculous catch and then it went into overtime. They won the coin toss and they go down…you knew what was coming once they won that toss. James White really should have won the MVP that game…so, in the booth, again, it’s one of these plays where these, you know, I remember they were lining up the play, and I remember talking to Zo in the thing, and I said, ‘Zo, let Bob call it because if he scores a touchdown, you, the game’s over, they go win the Super Bowl.’ I said, ‘let Bob call the touchdown. If it happens.’ Now, I didn’t know they were going to run it. I didn’t even know they were going to score, but I did that twice before that play because I wanted to make sure that Zo knew and I had Dennis ready. I had Dennis ready to shut Zo’s mic off if I had to. I didn’t want to do that, obviously, but I wanted Bob to make the call because I knew that this call was going to be all over the place.. So I told Zo – and Zo is a pro, he knew the situation, what was going on. So, I wasn’t really telling him anything.

“Like, he already knew. I was just reminding him, look, ‘this could be the last play, let Bob play it out’ and he knew that. I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. I was just double checking. I was just crossing I’s and Ts and all that stuff. So, if you listen to Bob’s call, Bob does the call and White scores the touchdown. We win and then Zo does his thing after that, which is fine. It was a great call. It was a really great call. And I just I just kind of felt…it was just hard to believe that they had won the game. I mean, there was no reason for them to win the game at all. It was laid out for Atlanta and they blew the game., but obviously give the Pats credit for coming back.”

Butler’s benching

“There was nothing. There was no chatter at the team hotel. It came out of absolutely nowhere. He played one play special teams play. Nobody saw that coming. And we kept saying, ‘where is Butler?’ And we got the binoculars out. What is he hurt? I’m texting the PR department is ‘Butler hurt? No, he’s not hurt. He’s fine. And we’re hearing back from the studio that everybody nationally is asking ‘where’s Butler, Where’s Butler? Where’s Butler, Where’s Butler? Where’s Butler? Nobody knew where Butler was. We knew where he was, and we just didn’t know why he wasn’t coming to the game. He didn’t come in the game. Brady throws 500 yards and you lose the Super Bowl. You can’t even make that up.

“They could not stop Philly for the life of them, no matter what happened. Now, people say, ‘well, if Butler played, they would have won the game.’ All right, I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not saying they would have won if Butler was in there either. I don’t know. I would have liked to have seen him in there though. He might be able to make a play or something, a stop or something. But, to say that if Butler played, they would have won the game…I’m a little hesitant on that. But he should have played.

“The game ends and Matt Patricia’s doing his post-game thing, and he’s the defensive coordinator and I’m sitting in the (little scrum) and I specifically ask him. I said, ‘why wasn’t Butler in the game?’ And he says ‘it was the coach’s decision.’ I said, ‘what do you mean it’s a coach’s decision? How is he not playing? He’s played 90 – the stat was out even prior to me getting down there that Butler had played – it was either 95% or 92% of the entire plays that year up until the Super Bowl, and then wasn’t in the Super Bowl. So, and I said to him at that point, I remember my question was, ‘he’s been in 90% of the plays that you guys on defense. And now all of a sudden…?’ So, Patricia…you could clearly tell was deflecting what was going on and what was going on was Bill benched him.

“Now, nobody knows to this day why. There’s been all sorts of stories.”

Super Bowl LIII

“L.A. was good. They were certainly an up and coming team. I felt good about the game because if you’re going to give me…if you going to give me a top offense versus top defense, I’m going to take a top defense for a one game, I’m going to take defense every time. And so, going into the game, I just felt like, well, ‘they’re not going to let the game go away like Philly did.’ Like, they’re going to win the game. They did, and they played a really good game defensively. Offensively, they didn’t play really well at all. It wasn’t a really good football game. I don’t remember a lot of the actual football in the Super Bowl. It was a totally forgettable Super Bowl. I don’t remember a lot of it. I just remember that it was a big catch by Gronkowski and I knew that was…when he did it and Bob had the call on it, I knew, you know, we kind of knew it was going to lead to them probably winning. I remember there was a play in the fourth quarter where they were either going to go for it or whatever and we were just saying, ‘why don’t they just kick a field goal?’ And the funny thing is, is that NFL Films came out after like two weeks later, and they had Brady on the sideline talking to Belichick and Brady says, ‘well, why don’t we just kick the field goal and we’re up two scores late in the fourth quarter?’  And that’s exactly what they did. But, that’s what we were saying in the booth because they were debating on if they were going to go on fourth down. I go, ‘what is the debate? If you kick the field goal, you’re up two scores. Like, you’re up two possessions.’

“The game’s over at that point. So that’s what they ended up doing. They kicked the field goal, made it 13-3 and they ended up winning. But it was a very boring, boring Super Bowl.

The Brady-Belichick Struggle

“Behind the scenes, you could tell that the egos were starting to clash. There was certain things with Brady’s trainer and Brady could only do certain things and (Belichick) was starting to piss off Brady. You could feel it – certainly  on the road in the team hotels – that there was some sort of tension that there was going on. Between players and coaches? There was a lot of talk about what was going on at that time with people inside the organization.. that stuff was going on. We didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it was being talked about that there was a beef between Bill and Tom and ggo was starting to take over. Tom’s starting to get fed up with Bill’s shit….The players didn’t talk about it (from what we heard), they didn’t talk about it. It was kind of a thing that was going on between Bill and Tom, kind of behind the scenes. But the players, they never mentioned a word. A couple of people had reported in the news, people had reported they had talked to some players who privately told them, yeah, they know what’s kind of going on, but they’re staying out of it because it doesn’t do them any good.”

Brady’s Final Night

“It was a dreary night and it was a feeling of the end of an era. Everyone had a feeling it could be. We said at the end of the game…well, we thought it during the middle of the game too, I said, ‘you know, if they lose this game, this could be Tom’s last game.’ This is it. The season’s over if they lose. That’s basically what happened. During that broadcast,  it was a little bit of emotional…not emotional, but like, you know, we were like, we kept saying…I kept thinking to myself and I kept saying this throughout to Bob and Zo, and certainly Dennis too: ‘dude, this is it. This could be Brady’s last game.’ You know? Like, there was some real talk that he was leaving and I was kind of trying to, again, trying to soak it all in thinking, ‘well, what a run this has been.’ I saw Tom Brady play every game of his Patriots career in person, every game. Preseason, regular season, playoffs, Super Bowl, everything.

“I was kind of thinking when I was driving home that night after the game was over…It was like, ‘oh, that that’s it. That’s going to be it.’ Like, That’s 20 years and that’s it. I was kind of shell-shocked to be honest. I mean, they lost to Tennessee, which was a good football team, but, like, you know, playoff, home playoff games, those are games they should win, and they normally did win. So it was a little shocking that they didn’t win. Bob definitely mentioned it. I think he said it at the very end before signing off. Yeah, before signing off, I think he had mentioned, you know, ‘we might have seen Tom’s last game here.’ I think he did mention that, if I remember correctly, that he brought that up. But, he didn’t say it when Brady got picked off to end it.”

The Pandemic Season

“That was very bizarre.  So we couldn’t travel. We were in the booth for 16 games. So, we had TVs set up all over the place. We were broadcasting the games from the booth. Even the road games. So, the setup was totally different. So, technically, it was a nightmare because the league had the whole system worked out for every team. The radio crews weren’t traveling. So everybody so the league had to do this massive setup thing where they were getting the game real time. Normally, there’s a delay through a feed. They had some sort of system where we were getting it like a second after it was happening. So, basically, if it was happening in Seattle, we were getting in a second later. We were calling it, and then the people in their cars were getting it two seconds after that. So, like, the delay was several seconds after. But, we called all 16 games in the booth. What’s weird about it is during halftime, when there’s 13 minutes in between halftime, and you and Dennis go outside and you literally sit like halfway down there (in Gillette) and you’re just looking at an empty stadium. You’re just shooting the shit and there’s nobody in the stadium. And then for the night games,  it was pitch black. The lights were not on. They had like the scoreboards on, and they had like, some other media lights on, but they didn’t have like the light lights on.

“You weren’t spotting. It was all on TV. I mean, the TVs were like right in front of us and we have like these 40 inch televisions right in front of us. We were watching the game like you were sitting on your couch at home, except we were in the booth and we were doing a broadcast. So, I was doing a little bit of spotting because I was still looking at the number and then letting Bob know, you know, who it is. But, I mean, it funny. Like, it was totally different…The following year when we started traveling again, we had to fly commercial. We couldn’t fly with the team, so that was an experience which wasn’t fun. You kind of get…you kind of spoiled when you travel with the team and on the team plane because everything is on time and you’re not delayed and you’re flying out when they’re flying out. That’s it. And so the next year following that, flying commercial was not fun. But, I remember just every game, doing it in the booth with nobody here. It was very eerie. It was very, very eerie. I remember that.

“It wasn’t the perfect conditions. It was it was terrible conditions, really. But, you know, we had a job to do and we had to do the best we could to put on the broadcast that we did. I remember listening to some of the broadcasts afterward, I would just listen to it in my car just to see what sounded like, you know? If you were driving in your car, what it sounded like? I got a few of the games and I put them on my phone and I had the plugged in and I was listening to them wherever I was driving or if I was grocery shopping, whatever. I would listen to the games just to see how they sounded.”

Belichick’s Final Run

“It definitely felt like it was ending. I really thought they should have gotten rid of Bill the year before and nobody was really buying that at the time because, how do you get rid of Bill? How do you get rid of Bill? And I just…my theory was when Bill was the great coach that he was – and  he’s probably the greatest coach of all time, I’m not taking that away from at all because I’s a tremendous coach – I think his time here just came to an end. I think at the last couple years he was playing out the string, and I don’t think that he was full throttle like he was in the previous, you know, 18, 19, 20 years. I think he was making decisions based on what he wanted and not what was best for the team. His whole motto was, ‘we don’t do anything unless it’s best for the team.’ I felt like, just me personally, I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, I’m just saying what I personally felt was he was doing things that weren’t best for the team.

“So, I think that he needed to go, I think he needed to fire him, which is basically what it was. They called it a mutual thing, but It wasn’t mutual. I think it was it was time for him to go and it was sad, to be honest. He had a 25-year run here. He had a hell of a run. You just don’t get that, you know, you get to cover the greatest coach of all time and the greatest quarterback of all time. Like, through all of it, through every game of it, you know, not missing a single game in 30 years, seeing every game of that and traveling with them and being a part of it…no matter what happens for me down the road, I’ll always have that and those memories.

“That last game against the Jets in the snow…I think everybody kind of expected it. There were people talking like it was going to happen the next day. Some people saying, well, ‘no, he’s not going to do it within the next day because of the history. I didn’t think that it was going to happen on Monday after the season. But, I felt like it was coming for sure. I think it was the time too. And so, you know.

“I don’t think Bill was happy about it, obviously, as he should be. He’s getting, you know, he’s here. He did a lot. He made the Krafts a lot of money. He won them a lot of games and won six rings. I was lucky enough to get one of them. I just think that that whole, you know, it was just an end of an era. It’s like a once in a lifetime type of thing. You’re not going to get that again.

Mayo’s surprise firing immediately after the final game

“I got to be honest with you. I was on my way home. I was driving home. I was listening to the postgame show and the story broke in the car. I had sent the sound and stuff to the postgame guys. So they had all that stuff. I was ready to go and I was getting out of here. I was driving home and that’s when the story broke.  Joe Murray mentioned it on the air saying that they had fired Mayo. And I said, ‘holy shit.’ and my phone started to like, blow up. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen anything like that before.

“I couldn’t believe it. I remember texting Zo going, ‘holy shit, dude’ and Zo was like, ‘what the f**k? Like, we couldn’t believe it. I was texting with Bob and I was going back and forth with all the guys and I was like, we couldn’t believe it. It was that fast. Like, there was talk it might be Monday morning. Like, you were getting ready for it, but it was an hour after the game. That that was a total shock. Couldn’t believe it. So, I listened to postgame on the way home like anybody else, probably driving in the car and the news broke. I think Joe Murray mentioned it saying they just fired Mayo.

“I thought he was joking. I literally thought he was joking. I was texting him going, ‘what? And then like, ‘what the hell’s going on here?’ I almost pulled over because I was getting ready to go on my phone because I couldn’t believe the story. I knew Joe wasn’t lying about it, but I couldn’t believe it.”

What stands out after 30 years and counting?

“It’s the relationships that really add up. It’s the broadcasting. It’s Gil and Gino and Bob and Zo and my boss, Rick Radzick, and Jim Louth, who helps us out. Dennis Knudsen, who’s been here for 29 years. So, that’s what means the most to me.. It’s the games, obviously. You know, you grow up and I got to be honest with you, when I first started doing this, like, I was more of a Bruins hockey guy than I was a football guy. But, you know, now the Patriots are like, my blood now. Even the day they throw me out of here, like, I’ll be like watching Patriots games for life because I was here for 30 years traveling and broadcasting all these games and the Super Bowls.

“Being a part of that and traveling with them…this is always going to be a part of me. So that’s what I’ll remember most. The games are special. don’t get me wrong. They’re definitely special. But, it’s everything else that goes with this that I’ll always will cherish. When they throw me out of here – which could be tomorrow – my experience here and the people that I’ve met here will always stay with me. I’ve traveled all over the country, I’ve traveled in Mexico, I’ve traveled in Europe twice. I’ve gone everywhere with the teams.

“So, it’s just the people that I have been with. I’ve just been extremely lucky, obviously. But, the timing was right and I’m continuing to do it. I still love doing it. I mean, I don’t see myself leaving it. I’m not exactly old. even though I’ve been doing this 31 years.”