Al Michaels out for NFL playoffs on NBC in move he wasn't expecting

[chongli]

38 minutes ago, dpberr said:

Yay, more company man Mike Tirico...

 

You know NBC truly hates you when it dares you to watch the Tony Dungy/Jason Garrett broadcast.  Little League World Series games have more cutting commentary. 

 

 

 

Well, thankfully, this year NBC will have Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge, and Kathryn Tappen calling on of their Wild Card games.

[billsfan714]

5 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

I have said for years, and still maintain, that other than maybe friends & family, absolutely no one tunes in to ANY sports contest because who is announcing the contest. People watch a sports event because: it’s their team (or for golf/tennis, they follow a certain player), it’s a great matchup between 2 good teams (or two good singular athletes), it's the playoffs and great games are expected, or they're betting on the event or player.

 

The amount of money paid to these announcers is just absolutely mind boggling. There's no need for it. Fans will watch their team, or their favorite player, or a great matchup no matter who is calling it. Conversely, if it's bad teams, or a crap matchup, no one is tuning in because Nance & Romo are calling it.

Great point, never understood the money thrown at these announcers.    If its my team or SNF, MNF, or TNF im watching unless its a blowout, announcers have no impact on my decision.   Just as what musician does the lead in has no impact on if im watching or not.  When I read NBC pays Carrie Underwood a million a game for SNF, I was thinking, you don't have better uses for 17 million?   One more point on Al Michaels, I was in high school when he called the miracle on ice, next year Im retiring, again time to give a younger person a shot.

[billsfan714]

7 hours ago, JayBaller10 said:

I thought Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are the most subdued announcers, both boring. Michaels at least has interesting things to say from time to time and has some voice inflection for certain calls, unlike the aforementioned boring duo. If NBC wants excitement, bring back Gus Johnson.

Joe Buck is a nepo baby.    He lost me with his faux outrage on the Randy Moss pretend mooning, you would have thought Moss whipped out his junk or something.

[chongli]

35 minutes ago, billsfan714 said:

Joe Buck is a nepo baby.    He lost me with his faux outrage on the Randy Moss pretend mooning, you would have thought Moss whipped out his junk or something.

 

Yeah, it was a weird call. Collinsworth seemed to enjoy it though. I actually thought it was hilarious:

 

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by chongli

[Scott7975]

Al Michaels is one of the all time greats and one of my favorites.  Sucks for him to find out this way.  I still liked his commentary but he was pretty low positive since he split from Collinsworth.  Hard to blame him. He dealt with a lot of really bad Thursday night football games.

[billsfan714]

Loyalty is a 2 way street, when Al chased the big bucks from amazon, I bet the NBC people weren't thrilled.  Well he got the money and the less than awesome Thursday night lineup.   Now he gets no playoff games, so enjoy the money Al and look forward to next years Panthers/Cardinals game.

[Royale with Cheese]

6 hours ago, chongli said:

 

Yeah, it was a weird call. Collinsworth seemed to enjoy it though. I actually thought it was hilarious:

 

 

 

Buck: "that is a disgusting act by Randy Moss....."

Aikman: "Well lets get back to the play"

 

LOL

[MPL]

I hope Amazon continues to get more games. It's the best football-watching experience now in my opinon. The pre and post-game analysts are far-better than any other network and the ability to pause the game and pick up where I left off is unrivaled (especially as the father of a 9-month-old). 

[boater]

He is 79? I didn't know that. He looks pretty good for his age.

 

I gotta agree though, his broadcasts are on the sleepy side. Must be because he's 79.

[HOUSE]

These old guys cost the network a lot of money.

It's best to install self check out  scanners for instant scores and highlights. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

2 minutes ago, Bogie_Klinkhammer said:

These old guys cost the network a lot of money.

It's best to install self check out  scanners for instant scores and highlights. 

I figured you would say "We'll always have Lake Placid, Al..."

🤔

[chongli]

UPDATE:

 

Al Michaels says he will return next year to continue broadcasting TNF on Amazon Prime:

 

 

"I feel good," Michaels said. "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."

 

"I still love this job. 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.

 

[...]
 

"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 said.

 

Michaels has actually been a miracle for Amazon Prime. He meshes well with analyst Kirk Herbstreit who isn't flashy but his straightforward bluntness with little bombast is refreshing

 

[...]
 

Herbstreit earlier this month defended Michaels from criticism that some of his broadcasts lacked energy.

 

"He hears the noise. I don't think he's like, 'I'll show them. I'm going to really bring it this week.' He’s definitely not doing that," Herbstreit said. "He has more of an ‘F you’ attitude about it than 'I'm going to show them.' He thinks it's a bunch of bullsh--. I think it's a bunch of bullsh--. And I think it's just a narrative that social media's kind of running with."

[TheFunPolice]

We were watching the All Madden documentary and they talked about how NBC tried basically every year to get Madden to do a one off broadcast and he never wanted to do it because he figured he went out on top with the Cardinals Steelers Super Bowl.

 

I get both sides of that. Madden was a guy who left a little early. Michaels is probably way past his prime. But if he truly loves it then we're the beneficiaries.

 

He's still very good. As a fan, I appreciate his work and I'm ok with him not being the same as he was 10 years ago. 

 

I would have freaking loved a one off Madden Michaels broadcast even if Madden wasn't the same Madden we remembered.  

 

 

[Bob Jones]

Wonder if they’ll have as many God Awful matchups on TNF next year as they did this year? 🤔 If the combination of crappy teams and Al & Kirk doesn’t put you to sleep, you’re probably high on speed. 😂

[Saxum]

22 minutes ago, Bob Jones said:

Wonder if they’ll have as many God Awful matchups on TNF next year as they did this year? 🤔 If the combination of crappy teams and Al & Kirk doesn’t put you to sleep, you’re probably high on speed. 😂

 

Many of the games looked better when scheduled by the AWS algorithm. 

Maybe NFL needs better parameters for the program.

[Ray Stonada]

On 12/13/2023 at 8:55 AM, chongli said:

 

Yeah, it was a weird call. Collinsworth seemed to enjoy it though. I actually thought it was hilarious:

 

 

Really bizarre overreaction by Joe Buck.

[SinceThe70s]

11 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

 

Many of the games looked better when scheduled by the AWS algorithm. 

Maybe NFL needs better parameters for the program.

 

What is this AWS algorithm you speak of? 

[Dick_Cheney]

7 minutes ago, SinceThe70s said:

 

What is this AWS algorithm you speak of? 

The NFL season is scheduled largely in part by machine learning powered by the AWS cloud. Whatever the scheduling rules and year by year alignments are, they punch all that into the system and they get the NFL schedule.

 

Honestly would be curious to know more about how it works on a deeper level, and what manual human input it still utilizes.

[Saxum]

25 minutes ago, SinceThe70s said:

 

What is this AWS algorithm you speak of? 

 

https://aws.amazon.com/sports/nfl/next-gen-stats-schedule-qa/#:~:text=What role does AWS play,of our friends at AWS.

 

NFL replaced usual method of generating schedule with Amazon generated one.

[dhg]

On 12/12/2023 at 3:59 PM, Jauronimo said:

No one expects NBC Executives!!  Their main weapon is surprise. Surprise and Cris Collinsworth's inane rambling. Their *two* main weapons are surprise, Cris Collinsworth's inane ramblings, and near fanatical devotion to Taylor Swift.  *Among* their weapons are surprise, Cris Collinsworth's ramblings, and fanatical devotion to Taylor Swift and thats it.  Also, a dizzying array of irrelevant talking heads that add no value to the broadcast...@#$@#%

Outstanding!