It is no secret in NFL circles that sports broadcaster Al Michaels was initially critical of Thursday Night Football. Michaels appeared relatable to NFL fans during Amazon's first season with the exclusive right to Thursday Night Football after panning multiple poor performances on the call. However, it seems that Michaels has softened on the product and is pleased with how the schedule looks for the 2024 season.
Al Michaels talked about his experiences on Thursday Night Football and why he is optimistic about this season's slate in an exclusive interview to Ryan Glasspiegel of New York Post.
“Early on, the first year, it was not so much my displeasure with the actual schedule, but the way the games were turning out,” Michael said. “We had that Indianapolis-Denver game and a Washington-Chicago game and they were not games that will ever be remembered by NFL Films.”
However, Michaels credited the NFL for changing tactics. He believes that the 2023 season was a big improvement and that 2024 has a chance to have some special games.
“Last year was considerably better, and this year is even better than that — by far the best of all, and I think a lot of it has to do with where the business is right now. Streaming is more and more important.”
Michaels credited one game in particular from the 2023 schedule – NBC's Peacock streaming-exclusive playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins. That game looked solid on paper with star-power galore with Mahomes, Kelce, Tagovailoa, and Hill duking it out. The actual game turned out to be something a little different, but it still made for a great story and television product.
“The graph is pointing up for streaming, and I don’t want to say down for linear because the NFL is so powerful right now and linear is still very, very important, but a lot of eggs are going in the streaming basket right now,” Michaels said.
Al Michaels is hopeful that the 2024 TNF schedule could have some special games
Prime Video will be getting in on that action in 2024. Amazon will have its first playoff game, a wild-card round matchup on either January 11th or 12th 2025, in addition to its Black Friday game, which debuted in 2023.
Other good-looking regular season matchups on Prime Video include Cowboys-Giants, Texans-Jets, Packers-Lions, Bengals-Ravens, and Rams-49ers.
In total, 12 of the 17 Prime Video games are divisional matchups. Even if some of these games look like a not-so-interesting matchup, divisional games tend to be highly competitive. They are also highly important to both teams involved.
“The league now understands that this is the direction the business is going,” Michaels said. “How fast it gets there, I don’t know.”
Al Michaels and his partner Kirk Herbstreit will make their Thursday Night Football debut in Week 2 on Thursday. The NFL gifted them a great game — Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins.
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