Al Michaels slams critics of his lack of enthusiasm on TNF

Al Michaels is not going to feign excitement at this stage in his legendary career.

Michaels, 78, is entering his second season calling the “Thursday Night Football” package alongside Kirk Herbstreit on Amazon’s Prime Video service.

He participated in a lengthy feature with Sports Business Journal, and shrugged off the doubters who thought he should have showed more enthusiasm for the games last year.

“Look, sometimes I’ll take some s–t,” Michaels said.

“People say, ‘He didn’t get excited enough.’ What do you want me to do? Scream, holler, yell the game? That ain’t me. That ain’t [Joe] Buck, that ain’t [Jim] Nantz. I can’t pay attention to anti-social media. We live in a country with 330 million people. And if eight people rip you on social media, I’m going, ‘huh?’

“Now anybody sitting in a basement has a platform. You can’t let things like that distress you. I’ve been doing this for so long. And I wouldn’t be here at this point still doing a major package if I was doing it the wrong way.” 

Earlier this year, after Amazon’s first-year schedule had concluded, Michaels was brutally honest about the slate of games.

“I think I’m to the point in my life and career, having watched sports since I was 6 years old, I feel what the crowd feels,” Michaels told The Athletic.

“The Denver-Indianapolis game [in] Week 4 was a dreadful game. No other way to describe it. No touchdowns.

“In fact, at one point during the game, I said to [analyst] Kirk [Herbstreit], ‘Is it possible this game could be so bad that it’s actually good?’ He’d never heard that from a partner and went, ‘No!’”

In the Sports Business Journal story, Michaels said he was warned by his brother, David, that he could get in trouble for bashing the slate of games.

“No, I’m not. Watch what happens,” Michaels responded.

Amazon has a pretty good slate of games this season, including Jets-Dolphins on Black Friday and Giants-49ers in Week 3, but there is also a chance we get reminders of last year’s games when the Bears play the Commanders and Panthers on Thursday nights.