The Write Man for the Patriots: Perillo Shines as Editor Of pro Team Newspaper

Paul Perillo has always been a baseball guru.

He played baseball at Everett High, and continued into college at Boston University, where he captained the team his junior and senior year.

But it was football that allowed him to do what he truly loved.

“What I decided early on was to incorporate the sports into real life,” Perillo said. “I always enjoyed writing, and thought that was the easy marriage of the two. That’s how I got on my career path.”

After covering sports at the Herald for 11 years, the Everett native was met with an opportunity he couldn’t resist.

A chance to do talk radio.

“My whole life, I’ve always liked to discuss sports,” he said. “I like saying why you thought something happened as opposed to what happened. That’s what I think talk radio does.”

In 2000, Perillo’s marriage with the New England Patriots began— and for 15 years, it has been a long, successful affair.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Perillo said. “But what I found is kind of what I thought: I can talk.”

Perillo started out as the team’s beat writer, but quickly moved into the talk radio scene as a cohost of the Big Show with Glenn Ordway on WEEI.

Now—in addition to his duties as editor of Patriots Football Weekly—Perillo cohosts a podcast called PFW In Progress with Fred Kirsch, Andy Hart and Erik Scalavino.

During football season, he frequents the Felger and Mazz show on the Sports Hub, and does TV specials for PFW on Comcast.

“Radio is the easiest because you can have an incomplete thought and just let it go to talk about it,” Perillo said. “TV you have to be really quick and concise. And writing is by far and away the hardest of all of them.”

As a member of the Patriots organization, Perillo said he has been fortunate to work for a team that is always winning.

“The way that Belichick sets up the program itself here, it sustains itself, and you know they’re going to be relevant,” he said.

The audience for PFW In Progress extends across continents, with listeners tuning into patriots.com podcasts from China, Ukraine, the Philippines and the U.K.

“They’re Patriots fans, but they don’t really have a way to keep in contact,” Perillo said of his international fanbase. “They download our podcast and listen to it on their own time. It’s a lot of fun.”

Perillo said the next step is to transition Patriots Football Weekly from paper to web-based content on game days.

But even after all the work Perillo has done for the Patriots, his cohosts still recognize him as the baseball guy.

“The thing that I love about Paul is that he’s not just a football fan, he’s a sportsman,” Kirsch said. “He probably knows more about baseball than football, so I love it when he goes on the local radio stations and sets them straight.

They think they can slide things by him when it’s about baseball—but he always catches them.”