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          Patriots fans should hear plenty of Tony Romo's analysis in 2017

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          What led Romo to broadcast booth? (1:45)

          Adam Schefter breaks down the chain of events that led to Tony Romo retiring from football for a job with CBS. (1:45)

          • Mike Reiss, ESPN Staff WriterApr 5, 2017, 09:00 AM
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              Mike Reiss is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the New England Patriots. Reiss has covered the Patriots since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2009. In 2019, he was named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. You can follow Reiss on Twitter at @MikeReiss.
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          FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots didn't see much of Tony Romo during the quarterback's 14-year career. facing him just two times (2007, 2011). They should see him a lot more than that in 2017.

          With Romo signing with CBS on Tuesday to be their lead television analyst alongside Jim Nantz, it had me looking back at how many times the No. 1 broadcasting tandem of Nantz and Phil Simms has worked Patriots games.

          It makes sense that the No. 1 broadcasting team would closely follow the AFC's No. 1 team, so consider this: From 2007 to 2016, the Nantz-Simms duo called 55 Patriots games, an average of 5.5 games per season.

          In 2007, 2010 and 2012, they called an eye-opening eight games (including playoffs).

          The low mark was 2008, when quarterback Tom Brady tore his ACL in the opener, and Nantz and Simms called just one Patriots game all season.

          More recently, the Patriots had the Nantz-Simms tandem four times in each of the last three seasons.

          Here is one more Patriots link to Tuesday's news about Romo: During a conference call, Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, relayed a story that highlighted his belief Romo would be a lead analyst at some point.

          "I really go back to Super Bowl XLIX in Phoenix -- New England Patriots vs. Seattle Seahawks. At the NFL Friday night party, David Berson [president of CBS Sports] and I happened to run into Tony. We introduced ourselves, we had met each other a couple times before, and I said to Tony, 'What do you think about the game?' I didn't realize that I was going to get an audition with Tony for about 10 minutes. He broke down the entire game," McManus said.

          "What does New England need to do to stop Marshawn Lynch. What should Brady do against that incredibly successful and talented Seahawks secondary. He actually even said that he thought Malcolm Butler was going to make a huge play on the goal line with less than a minute to go."

          At that point of the call, McManus stopped to say he was joking about the last part about Butler. But he couldn't have been more impressed.

          "The fact he broke down the game in such an incredible good way for 10 minutes, I walked away from that conversation and said, 'Someday that man is going to be a lead analyst for somebody.' We didn't know it was going to be CBS, but I had a really strong feeling he was going to be a lead analyst."