During his first season announcing Thursday Night Football for Amazon Prime Video, many eagle-eyed observers made note of an interesting development: Al Michaels would never say the words “NBC” or “Sunday Night Football“. He would simply refer to the upcoming schedule as “Sunday night”.
In an interview with Andrew Marchand of The New York Post, Michaels says that was just a coincidence.
“No. I didn’t even think about that,” Michaels said. When you say ‘Sunday night,’ they know. I probably don’t [say ESPN] when I say, ‘Monday night.’ They know where it is.”
Viewers questioned whether Michaels didn’t utter the words due to his removal as the program’s lead play-by-play announcer in favor of Mike Tirico. He said that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“No, no,” Michaels said. “Somebody is trying to make stuff up about that. That has nothing do with it. I have an emeritus deal there.”
As part of his emeritus role at NBC, Michaels will announce a playoff game for the network in January.
