When the NFL season kicks off on Thursday Night, Cris Collinsworth will join long-time partner Al Michaels in the announcer’s booth for NBC. In the lead-up to Thursday’s game, Collinsworth spoke with ESPN’s Mike and Mike regarding the state of affairs in Foxboro.
“There’s a whole swirl of emotions that go with this game tomorrow night,” Collinsworth said. “It is going to be a ‘bitter celebration’.
Collinsworth went on to add, “there’s certainly a lot of bitterness in this town about how all of this was handled, but it will also be a celebration of that championship. How many times have we heard they haven’t won [a Super Bowl] since Spygate? Now they did, and now you throw Deflategate into that mix. It is just raw emotion here from the fans from a lot of the players.”
Collinsworth then described the scene at Gillette Stadium yesterday after ESPN’s Outside the Lines released their investigation into Roger Goodell’s relationship with the Patriots. In the report, multiple allegations were made regarding the extent of the Patriots’ videotaping of opponents prior to the “Spygate” incident in 2007. Anonymous sources also claimed that New England would routinely steal play sheets out of the Gillette Stadium visitor’s locker room and rumored that the team would create interference in opposing coaches’ headsets before critical plays.
“There was a story that came out of ESPN yesterday that was going on while we were at the Patriots’ facility,” said Collinsworth. “Stacey James, their PR guy, was like a fireman. He was putting out fires left and right. Robert Kraft was involved and his feeling is that a lot of these unnamed sources, who are they? Are these sour grapes over games that we won in the past?”
Despite the controversy that has come to define the Patriots’ off-season and now threatens to seep into their regular season, New England will still need to perform at their best against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night. Collinsworth had the following thoughts regarding the Patriots’ preparation for the upcoming game.
“The one thing that we know from the New England Patriots is that they can compartmentalize with the best of them. There’s always something flowing around this football team.” Collinsworth added, “when you get inside the building itself, it really is much more of the same old Bill Belichick “do your job” and focus on the next play, focus on the next practice. I don’t know if there’s a team out there that can handle this stuff better than the New England Patriots do.”
The match up between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers will air at 8:30 PM EDT tomorrow night on NBC. The Patriots are currently favored by 6.5 points.
