I was asking Al Michaels questions the other day about retirement when he turned the tables on me.
“Let me ask you a question: How do I sound to you?” Michaels said.
Michaels, the voice of Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football,” is probably the greatest NFL TV play-by-player of all time. In his prime, he fired 97 mph fastballs. During his final years at NBC, he was still in the low-90s on the black, including a Tom Brady-like performance in the Super Bowl a little more than a year-and-a-half ago.
I told him, right now, I think he is throwing 85 at times. On Thursdays, he doesn’t sound as enthusiastic, where he lacks the trademark inflection that punctuated a play, citing, as one example, his lack of excitement during Will Levis’ Houdini act to avoid a sack on a big gain last week in the Titans’ loss to the Stealers.
“Your assessment is fair,” Michaels, 78, said.
Michaels, however, did not fully agree with it, even though I’m not alone. The internet has been on Michaels since he and Tony Dungy were low key during Jacksonville’s epic playoff comeback over the Los Angeles Chargers on NBC in January. Social media can be unsophisticated, cruel, relentless — and occasionally right.
However, let’s be clear, Michaels can still do the job even if he sounds like he’s giving it 80 percent. This week he will be challenged by two seven-loss teams in the Panthers and Bears.
Michaels has bestowed Amazon with instant credibility, though the promising combo with game analyst Kirk Hebrstreit hasn’t come close to Herbstreit’s stated goal of being the best booth in sports.
The duo feels like two guys doing a game, not friends, like, say Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, having fun. Herbstreit is a college guy and has even romanticized on air about how the collegiate atmosphere is so much more electric than the NFL. I thought Herbstreit would be better on TNF.
Overall, Amazon’s TNF has had a tremendous year so far with an improved schedule and an incredible ratings jump.
Michaels’ legacy is cemented, and he doesn’t really need my help in deciding his future. However, it is usually better to be a year early than a year late on these things, as difficult as that can be.
Michaels signed a three-year deal and is being paid an estimated $500,000 to $1 million per game. He flies private and it is one Thursday a week for less than half the year. So why would he give it up?
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m doing next year,” Michaels said. “There’s no question about that in my mind.”
And he should.
However, it would probably work out best if he said next season was his final year. Michaels could be feted, a celebration of the greatest to ever to do it.
“No, I mean, Keith Jackson had one of those things and came back and did it another seven years,” Michaels said when presented with a retirement tour.
Well, you could do that?
“No, no, no, no, no,” Michaels said. “Look when I’m done. It’s the way John Madden was done. Two words and a contraction: ‘It’s time.’ I don’t need any parade or that nonsense.”
You can tell and you can hear that he misses being on the biggest games each week, where he stood on top of the mountain from Monday night to Sunday night to Super Bowls for decades.
Amazon is building something, but it is still off-Broadway for Michaels. He tried to keep his NBC “Sunday Night Football” job, but the network moved on to Mike Tirico. He was in line for ESPN’s Monday night gig before Buck snagged it. And then he tried to score Fox’s top job, which would have allowed him to break his tie with Pat Summeral with 11 TV Super Bowl calls. Fox went with Kevin Burkhardt. Michaels thinks he sounds basically the same as always.
“I don’t think I’m a lot different than I have been through the years,” Michaels said. “And if people you know want to say that, ‘Al doesn’t sound as excited.’ Hold on a second, folks. I’m doing the same game I’ve always done.”
They aren’t the same games, though, which could be part of the difference. Michaels has said he can’t sell a game that is not good. But, what is lost from living in the penthouse all those years, is the viewers are choosing to watch the game, even if it is rib eye instead of filet mignon.
“I like to build drama,” Michaels said. “We’re doing television. We’re not doing radio. And you’ve heard me, for years and years and years and it is just as simple as that: You build the drama, and the pictures tell the story.”
Michaels’ iconic career has been a tale of seemingly always being in control. He’s a legend, he shouldn’t lose the narrative now.
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