Philadelphia, PA – With just 20 days until the Eagles first regular season game of 2016, the organization has begun the painstaking process of thawing the cryogenically frozen play-by-play announcer Merrill Reese.

The 73-year-old announcer has been cryogenically frozen at the end of each season since 2012, when the franchise determined he was experiencing too much wear and tear during the offseason and needed to be preserved for 16 weeks (or more, depending on the playoffs) of the NFL season.

“It takes about 20 days to thaw him out and get him moving again. We need a few days alone to thaw out his hair. Then he has to regain all of his motor skills, ability to talk, and memorize the new additions to the roster and he’ll be good to go,” Eagles Head Cryogenicist Linda Murray said.

She tapped on a frozen block of ice, which currently housed the famed  and beloved announcer, and said he would be ready to go for week 1.

Confused readers may point to the fact that they’ve heard Reese twice so far in the preseason, calling games against the Steelers and the Buccaneers, but what they actually were listening to is a mash-up of all of Reese’s former calls over his years as a broadcasts, mashed up and played at appropriate moments of the game.

The program is still not without its flaws, however, as it accidentally broadcast a 10-minute clip from Reese calling the Eagles 27-3 loss against the Steelers in the 2004 season.

“Luckily, most of our radio listeners are too drunk to notice or too old to care,” Murray said.

Sources confirmed Reese’s hair would receive an oil change and his fluids would be topped off before he was ready to go.