Dec 21, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Thursday Night Football Amazon Prime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels during the game between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Kirby Lee
Al Michaels will be the play-by-play broadcaster for Thursday's Commanders-Eagles tilt. Could it be the final time he calls an Eagles game?
Michaels — who is celebrating his 80th birthday Tuesday — is in his third season calling Thursday Night Football games for Amazon Prime Video.
You can make a real case that he's the greatest play-by-play announcer in the history of American sports, although he hasn't gotten great reviews since joining the streaming service in 2022.
Part of that is the quality of Thursday Night Football isn't always the best. Even if you get a strong matchup, turning around four days after your last game is difficult to do in a sport as brutal as football, and can sometimes lead to a subpar product.
Michaels has also previously worked with some of the most accomplished color commentators in NFL history, most notably John Madden and Cris Collinsworth. For as much success as Kirk Herbstreit has had calling college games, he hasn't translated as well as the color commentator alongside Michaels on TNF. Maybe he's spread too thin with all of his media gigs. Maybe he's just not as good as Madden and Collinsworth, and at this stage of his career Michaels needs a better sidekick. Who knows.
But if you've listened to Michaels over the past few seasons, you do sometimes get the vibe that Thursday Night Football feels like something of a letdown for him after calling the highest-rated games in the sport for so long — Monday Night Football at its peak, and then Sunday Night Football when that became the dominant showcase game. Even on a streaming service, Thursday Night Football draws eyeballs. But it doesn't have the same allure as even a 4:25 game on Sunday afternoon, let alone MNF or SNF.
Al Michaels needs to join Bob Costas in retirement. No emotion in multiple big plays tonight pic.twitter.com/D1MKGO5J2y
Michaels' contract is up at the conclusion of this year, as he originally signed for three years and "around $45 million" when TNF moved to Amazon Prime Video in 2022.
At that time, Michaels, it seems, was politely shown the door by NBC, who had Mike Tirico waiting in the wings and wanted to turn the page. Michaels, though, wasn't ready to walk away. So he continued his legendary broadcasting career at a streaming service, probably something he wouldn't have even been able to comprehend when he began his journey in the early 1970s.
Back in September, Michaels was asked by Ryan Glasspiegel of The New York Post about his future, given that he's not yet under contract for anywhere in 2025.
"The reality is, I’ve trained myself to live in the present," Michaels said. "I have for a long period of time. I don’t like to go into the past. People love to hear stories about the old days — I’m bored with it."
"Down the line, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does," Michaels continued. "Right now I feel great. I’m looking forward to the start of the season. I’ve made no decision in terms of what will happen in the future. I suspect that some time during the year I’ll have a better feeling of what it’s like. But my feeling is, if I can live up to the standard I expect from myself, then I’ll want to continue. If I can’t, then I’ll have to think about it another way. I don’t want to go out, as Howard Cosell used to say, ‘a shadow of your former self.’"
Michaels has called countless Eagles games, the most notable of which was when the team won their first Super Bowl title in February of 2018 with NBC broadcasting the game. Even if there's an argument to be made that it might be time, this is one of the most accomplished figures in the history of American media, sports or otherwise. Savor his call Thursday — even if it's not his last time broadcasting the Eagles, there probably aren't many more left.
