One illuminating way to gauge how your favorite football team is perceived around the NFL is to look at which announcer teams television networks deploy to call their Sunday games.

During the two-decade dynasty, Jim Nantz called so many Patriots games — first with analyst Phil Simms on CBS’s top team for 13 seasons, then with Tony Romo beginning in 2017 — that a moment was spent acknowledging his 100th broadcast of a New England contest during an October 2020 matchup with the 49ers.

Since the dynasty ended, however? Let’s just say that Nantz hasn’t said, “Hello, friends,” to Patriots viewers very often.

In fact, Sunday’s anticipated matchup with the Buccaneers in Tampa will be the first time Nantz and Romo call a Patriots game in more than two years.

Their most recent one came in

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