Patriots’ Joe Cardona compares lead-up to Army-Navy to Super Bowl week

The annual Army-Navy football game is approaching and one New England Patriots player knows exactly what the players are going through as they prepare for Saturday’s highly anticipated matchup.

Long snapper Joe Cardona spent four years at the Naval Academy and played in four Army-Navy games. Even though he hasn’t played in one of the games since 2014, Cardona — who’s currently a lieutenant in the Navy — remembers what the prep was like leading to kickoff.

On the latest episode of “Eye On Foxborough,” MassLive Patriots columnist Karen Guregian was joined by Cardona, who discussed what the lead-up to the Army-Navy game is like.

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“Usually, both teams have a bye week before the game because it’s the biggest game on our calendar. And having had this perspective from playing with the Pats, it’s like a Super Bowl week,” Cardona said. “You have two weeks of preparation, your sole focus is on that one opponent. They know you inside and out, you know them inside and out.

“The preparation is heavy, we called it Army camp. Now we get all these fancy uniforms. But back back in the day, it was just straight gold helmets for us and the Army helmets are actually the same just gold helmets with the black stripe,” he continued. “So all the scout team guys got their piece of electrical tape down the center of their helmet. So, you had half the team look like Army out there every day. So, it was an intense practice and intense and intensity that I can only compare to how we prepare in the NFL as far as that goes.”

Army-Navy comes to Gillette Stadium on Saturday with kickoff set for 3 p.m. EST. 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Bob Socci, who called the game for several years, urged “Eye On Foxborough” listeners to not miss any of the pregame ceremonies, which begin with the march-ons at Noon.