"Polarizing?" Jason Benetti is one of the best in the business. You've gone from one of the best in the business and whose exit was apparently a result of requests from national media outlets to be able to use him more (they don't do that with bad announcers), to... Schriffen. If you want to talk about alienating a fanbase, that's one way to do it.
Sure, on-field performance will positively or negatively cloud people's judgment of the in-booth product, but to go from 6th to DFL (Dead F'ing Last), my guess is that the in-booth product got worse.