Red Sox

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

January 11, 2025 | 12:46 PM

4 minutes to read

A field goal’s worth of sports media thoughts kicking while heading into my post-Patriots bye week (some call it vacation) . . .

· NESN appears to be getting its Red Sox broadcast booth right for the first time in a few seasons.

During a conversation with new NESN president and CEO David Wisnia in November, I mentioned that one of the frustrations Red Sox viewers often cite to is the rotating-cast-of-characters approach to the analyst chair since Jerry Remy passed away in 2021 and Dennis Eckersley retired after the ‘22 season.

Wisnia seemed to agree. “I think there is value in some sort of consistency across the board,’ he said then. “It goes back to broadcast television. People get used to custom, they get used to habit, and there’s a comfort in seeing the same broadcasters. That’s true when it comes to local news, and I think it applies to sports as well.”

I say seemed to agree because you never really know until action is taken. Well, NESN is about to take the right actions.

The Red Sox haven’t formally announced their broadcast rosters on NESN and WEEI, and they most likely won’t until early February. But some of the details have been reported here (as well as MassLive.com), including what is the most encouraging detail of all:

Lou Merloni will be the analyst on approximately 100 Red Sox broadcasts on NESN, alongside play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien.

I had my disagreements with Merloni when he was a host at WEEI, but it’s become clear to me over the past couple of years that he is the rightful and spiritual successor to Remy — the local-guy-made-good ex-middle infielder with a likably sarcastic sense of humor and an everyman way of explaining baseball’s nuances.

There are a few voices NESN has shuffled through the broadcast booth in recent years who are enjoyable (Will Middlebrooks, who will be doing a bunch of radio games, as well as some TV, is one), and others mostly tedious (both Kevins).

I’ve advocated for Merloni for a while now, because he is good company on the broadcast, fully capable of bringing that consistency and comfort through the long season that Wisnia referenced. I’m glad they’re getting this right.

· I’ll believe Bailey Zappe will someday lead a team back from a 28-3 deficit to win a Super Bowl before I believe Tom Brady will return to Fox for a second year.

Brady has been fine during his rookie season alongside Kevin Burkhardt on Fox’s top NFL broadcast pairing.

No more, no less. Fine.

Every cliché, verbal misstep, and awkward pause has been parsed, minced, and chronicled because of who Brady is and the role he had, for which he is both underqualified for and almost too famous to thrive in. He has clearly been overcoached, with stunted any natural candor he might have.

Yet there are moments when the broadcasting potential flashes like a strobe. He draws from his deep reservoir of knowledge to make almost casually informative observations, such as when he noted during the superb Week 14 matchup between the Bills and Rams how ruthlessly Los Angeles was attacking Buffalo defensive end A.J. Epenesa in the running game.

I’m so curious regarding whether he can improve at this. But I do not believe for a second that we will find out.

His status as a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders makes this untenable. Reports that he’s already checked in with Bill Belichick — either to gauge his interest in coaching or just to pick his brain — confirm how involved he is with the Raiders.

The league-mandated limitations that were put on information-gathering opportunities as a broadcaster because of his Raiders involvement are necessary, and they would prevent him from doing the broadcasting job to the best of whatever ability he has going forward.

So, go ahead and call it a prediction. I’m going to call it common sense. Brady will be in the Fox booth to call Super Bowl LIX in a few weeks. He’ll never call another game after that.

· Blake Griffin will be the best NBA studio analyst not affiliated with TNT in ages.

TNT’s “Inside the NBA” — right, Chuck, Shaq, Kenny, and Ernie — has long set the bar for studio programs on any network, across any sport.

Other NBA broadcast partners have consistently struggled to find the right mix of personalities on their studio programs, particularly ESPN/ABC, which is one reason why “Inside the NBA” is going to be affiliated with the Disney networks when the new rights deal begins next season. If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em.

Considering that rocky non-”Inside the NBA” landscape, it’s impressive that Amazon Prime has already assembled a compelling cast for its NBA studio program.

Griffin will join host Taylor Rooks and Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki on Amazon Prime’s NBA studio program come October.

Griffin, in particular, is an inspired hire. He is genuinely funny, which is well beyond the athlete kind of funny that gets overzealous chortles out of the sportswriter likes of me when they say something mildly humorous.

And as a recently retired player — he spent his final season with the 2022-23 Celtics as the rare former superstar who embraced the role of good-vibes veteran bench guy — he has the kind of recent first-hand knowledge that Tony Romo brought to CBS’s NFL broadcast with such fanfare in 2017.

Words to mark: Griffin is going to be great.