The second season of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football came to an end this week when the Cleveland Browns defeated the New York Jets, 37-20.
As such, Al Michaels’ NFL season came to an end as well, as NBC announced a couple of weeks ago that Michaels would not be part of the network’s playoff coverage this season, which came as a surprise to the 79-year-old announcer.
In an interview Saturday with USA Today, Michaels’ first since the news came out, Michaels took time to address his future, saying, “I feel good, I feel healthy. I feel fine. I told Amazon that I’d do three years and next year will be three, and I’m definitely doing it. We’ll see after that.”
Michaels has previously made it clear that he would be back for 2024, but he’s certainly keeping his options open beyond that for now.
Despite criticism the last two seasons suggesting Michaels has lost a step or doesn’t have the excitement or passion he once had, he was quick to shoot that down.
“I still love this job,” Michaels said. “I still get a charge out of going into a stadium and watching the best in the world do what they do. I’m still really happy so that’s the big thing.”
Michaels also took the high road about NBC’s decision to not let him call a playoff game, part of the agreement when he stepped aside from Sunday Night Football to let Mike Tirico have the job and moved to Prime Video, saying “Amazon has been really great to me and I’m appreciative that I’ve been a part of helping them grow their NFL presence.”
Michaels started calling NFL games in 1973 and was the voice of Monday Night Football from 1986-2005 before being “traded” to NBC for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character created by Walt Disney in 1927 and subsequently sold to NBC’s parent company, Universal. ABC is, of course, owned by the Walt Disney Company.
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