Al Michaels won't be calling a playoff game for NBC
The marriage between NBC and Al Michaels is finally and fully over.
According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Michaels won’t be calling a playoff game for NBC.
Last year, Michaels capped his first season calling Amazon's Thursday night games with the Chargers-Jaguars wild-card game on NBC. This year, NBC won't use Michaels for a postseason contest.
NBC will broadcast three playoff games, two in the wild-card round and one in the divisional round. Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth will call two of them. Noah Eagle and Todd Blackledge will handle the other one.
Marchand notes that, as of early November, Michaels believed he's handle a playoff game for NBC.
“It’s in my deal,” Michaels told Marchand at the time. “Where are you hearing that from? That’s part of my deal. Are you hearing something that I’m not hearing?”
Michaels joined NBC in 2006, when NBC secured the rights to Sunday Night Football. Before that, Michaels served as the play-by-play announcer on ABC's Monday Night Football for 20 years.
Michaels, 79, has said he intends to return to Amazon in 2024, for what would be his third season on Thursday Night Football. Some think he should step aside. Others find comfort and familiarity in hearing his voice.
Ultimately, it's up to Michaels and his employers. NBC decided to turn the page. Amazon has decided to stay the course. As long as he wants to do the job, can do the job, and has a platform for doing the job, why not do it?
At a time when Americans are fretting about the advanced age of the two primary candidates for custody of the nuclear codes as of January 2025, there's no issue at all with Al Michaels deciding he wants to keep doing something that, over the course of a storied career, he has done better than anyone.
