NBC missing opportunity with Michaels
There are all sorts of ways to take measure of Al Michaels’s extraordinary broadcasting career.
There’s the timeless and iconic one, of course, when in the waning seconds of the United States men’s hockey team’s monumental upset of the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, he asked if we believed in miracles, then answered in the affirmative with a delirious nation.
There are the calls of other classic sports moments that have deep meaning to New England. “To left field and deep and Downing goes back — and it’s gone!” . . . “Intercepted at the goal line by Malcolm Butler! Unreal!” . . . “It’s Hagler, full of blood!”
If you require further time/place data beyond Michaels’s calls to identify those events, I may have to check your Boston Sports Fan membership card to make sure it’s not counterfeit.
As a matter of fact, that Marvin HaglerThomas Hearns brawl in 1985 actually might fit into another category, at least for those not invested in either fighter: Michaels has delivered a memorable call for so many special moments that it’s easy to overlook some.
I bring this up because, well, it’s always satisfying to revisit those moments and calls. But also for this reason: it’s a bummer that NBC decided Michaels won’t work a playoff game for them this season.
Michaels was the voice of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” from 2006 — when the network regained part of the NFL broadcast package — until 2021, when he moved over to Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football.” Michaels, 79, retained an emeritus role at NBC and called a playoff game last year, the Jaguars’ win over the Chargers in the wild-card round in which Jacksonville overcame a 27-0 deficit.
The network has the rights to three wildcard round games this year, with one streaming on Peacock. Mike Tirico, who succeeded Michaels on “Sunday Night Football,” will call two, with “SNF” analyst Cris Collinsworth joining him on at least one. NBC’s Big Ten college football pairing of Noah Eagle and Todd Blackledge will call the other.
It’s understandable that NBC wants to cross-promote with its college football broadcasts. But there should have been room for Michaels. He’s not quite as incisive as he was in October 1986 or even February 2015, but he remains excellent when he has an interesting game. I’m still chuckling at his line to analyst Kirk Herbstreit when the Raiders built their lead to 42-0 over the Chargers on Amazon’s broadcast Thursday night.
“If this were Pop Warner,’’ he said with that familiar wryness, “they’d stop the game, right?”
Even more disappointing than Michaels’s playoff absence is the way he found out. The New York Post’s intrepid Andrew Marchand learned of NBC’s plans and called Michaels, who had not been informed by NBC management. It’s been common knowledge in media circles for a while that Michaels has one particular powerful doubter at the network. But having a subjective opinion of him or his work is one thing. Lacking the grace to inform him that his playoff run is done is much more egregious. Maybe Michaels, if given the chance, would have added one more memorable call to his seemingly endless highlight reel. It’s possible, too, that he would have had a nondescript game and an unremarkable call; every play-byplay voice has days like that.
This much is certain: Al Michaels always rises to meet the moment, more than any other announcer in history. The wild-card round will have a little less magnitude without him.
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But for all the circular speculation and stenography of each presumed candidate’s appearances on the show, sources continue to reiterate that the job will — not might, will — go to Rob “Hardy” Poole once all of the “tryouts” are complete.
A deal isn’t finalized, but that’s a matter of time.
Other perceived candidates may end up with different or expanded roles at the station — for instance, when Hardy moves to mornings, that will leave a third-chair opening on the midday “Zolak and Bertrand” program. Kendra Middleton, who joined the station in a part-time role in June, has proven worthy of a bigger role during her fill-in stints with Toucher and third voice Jon Wallach, as has Ryan Johnston.