“Al Michaels’ quirks dominate Amazon’s NFL broadcasts”

Among sports fans, certain voices exude authority. From Vin Scully to Howard Cosell to Keith Jackson, just listening to these high-profile broadcasters can create a mood reminiscent of their famous calls and transform a game into an event. For decades, when viewers heard the voices of Pat Summerall and John Madden, first on CBS and then on Fox, they knew they had found the must-see football game of the week.

Summerall and Madden have both passed away, but Al Michaels, Madden’s later broadcast partner in his career, continues his play-by-play duties. As of 2022, he moved from network television to Amazon Prime, where he and former college quarterback Kirk Herbstreit broadcast Thursday Night Football games for the streaming service.

After celebrating his 80th birthday on November 12, broadcasting’s youngest octogenarian has taken on a distinct personality in the latter stages of his career. If Madden was the sportscaster fans wanted to have a beer with and talk football with, Michaels resembles the sometimes gruff, opinionated uncle who attends Thanksgiving dinner.

Dry distancing

Michaels’ personality is expressed in different ways both in and out of the game. First, he claims that he has never knowingly eaten a vegetable. One wonders how exactly Michaels defines this boast – would french fries or other potato-based snacks count? Does ketchup count? – but at least it doesn’t seem to have hurt its longevity.

When broadcasting football games in recent years, Michaels has often struck an amused tone toward the game his superiors pay him millions to describe. During Super Bowl LII, for example, mentioning whether a player could keep the ball after contact with the ground prompted Michaels to refrain from specifically asking anyone, “Can any of us survive the ground?” Cris Collinsworth, Michaels’s partner in the locker room at the time, laughed at the many long replay delays and changing definitions of what constitutes a catch in the modern NFL.

Michaels also uses archaic and occasionally mixed cultural references in his caustic asides. Earlier this year, shortly after halftime of a game in which the New York Jets appeared anemic on offense in the first half, he claimed that “the rumor that the Jets played ‘Hello Darkness, My Old Friend’ at halftime, “Isn’t true” – This is fake news.” When he accidentally used the former name of the Washington football team in the final game of the 2020 regular season, he claimed that he owed his producer “two Bitcoins” for it. (At the time, a single Bitcoin was worth about $30,000—a fact that Michaels was probably unaware of.)

Significant for some

Michaels frequently includes references to gambling in his broadcasts – but still feels the need to do so in a surreptitious manner, even though most states have legalized sports betting and the NFL and other professional leagues now heavily promote such services. For example, at the end of last week’s game pitting the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders against each other, Michaels and Herbstreit had this exchange:

With the Eagles holding a seemingly insurmountable lead, Michaels turned to the gambling aspect – albeit in a very secretive way. But since the game’s over/under ratio in total points was 48.5, not even seven points from a Washington touchdown would change that aspect of the outcome, as Michaels suggested.

Without that element, Michaels and Herbstreit then attempted to give a percentage probability that Washington could make the necessary moves to come back late in the game. Referring to Amazon’s NextGen stat probabilities, Michaels remarked: “I’m the last generation – what can I tell you?”

Never was that observation truer than in a game two years ago, during its first season on Amazon. At a game at SoFi Stadium, Michaels mocked the stadium announcer’s incessant calls and responses to fans: “Whose house? Rams House!” admitting to Herbstreit: “I hate it.”