Al Michaels tries defending his horrid announcing during Jags-Chargers game
I’m sure by now we’ve all seen or heard about the Jacksonville Jaguars’ amazing comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card. It was the third largest comeback in NFL playoffs history and one of the better games I’ve seen to date. But when listening to the broadcast done by Al Michaels and Tony Dungy, you’d have thought anything but.
I won’t go into too much detail regarding the broadcast itself — Trey has already written up a blog on it — but following the heat he received on social media, Michaels has finally clapped back and tried to defend his performance on Saturday.
“A lot of folks who understand this industry are annoyed with the over-the-top yelling that makes a game sound like an offshoot of talk radio,” Michaels said. “I’m in that corner, but there are others who obviously think otherwise.”
Quote via WEEI Sports
Michaels later added that he was very happy with his performance and that he isn’t trying to create hit YouTube clips. Now listen, I don’t know what bar Michaels holds for himself but if he was very happy with that performance, I can’t imagine the bar is very high.
Again, I won’t labor on about the performance itself, but in short, I can say that it was very bad and overall, just dull. No one is asking for you to blow your voice out and scream so much you pass out. Still, when the Jags kick a game winning field goal to pull off one of the greatest comebacks of all time, you can show more emotion than this.
Like, come on! This is one of the most dramatic finishes of the season and these two sound like they are speaking in a library. This clip is far from the only example. Throughout the game, it just sounded like Michaels and Dungy were disinterested and couldn’t wait for the game to end.
Now, I don’t want to come on here and just slander Al Michaels. The man has made an amazing career as a broadcaster and is a voice that practically lived in my living room. He has some great calls and has an amazing voice, but it’s clear that the 78-year-old is losing a step.
I will come to Michaels’ defense a little bit here. Calling an entire football game is no easy task and many of the people coming at Michaels certainly would not be able to do a better job. With that in mind though, there is a certain level of announcing that Al Michaels has given us over the years — on Saturday he fell well short of those expectations.
I don’t know what the future hold for Michaels — he doesn’t currently seem happy with his current gig of hosting Thursday Night games. Although after that Saturday showing, can you really say you are surprised? Michaels is 78 and clearly doesn’t have the same energy he once had. It sucks to see but I think Al Michaels and his time in the booth may be coming to an end.
***
Subscribe to our YouTube!!
Check out our merch!!
