The uproar was quick, loud, and clear. The victim this time was the great Al Michaels. A legendary broadcaster who gave us “Do You Believe in Miracles?” made a call that seemed out of character in fact and tone. It was a week ago when Michaels seemed confused about Christian Kirk’s touchdown that broke a 24-24 tie, sending Jacksonville to a win over New Orleans. Kirk was running down the sideline toward the endzone when Michaels made the call.
“Kirk takes the ball all the way, to about the 1-yard line,” Michaels is heard saying. “They’re gonna spot it as he thinks he scored the touchdown…And they’re going to call it a touchdown now.”
Kirk, from the video on the telecast, didn’t seem that close to going out of bounds and immediately began to celebrate the touchdown. Jacksonville fans were not only upset with the facts of the call, they didn’t seem to like the lack of excitement either. That stems from the Jaguars/Chargers playoff game from earlier this year. Michaels and Tony Dungy took heat for a less-than-enthusiastic call of the big comeback.
“Time to retire,” said one ‘expert’ on X after the Thursday Night game. I’m sure that individual never made a mistake in the job they do, right? To pile on Al Michaels seems unfair, especially after his decades of memorable calls and games. Having been in radio and television booths myself, there are a number of reasons an announcer can miss a call like that. I’m not completely dismissing the possibility, that he just missed it, but to be honest, show me a broadcaster that hasn’t screwed up a call before. You’ll be showing me a blank piece of paper.
Nobody knows for sure what happened, except Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit, and the production crew at the game. Broadcasters never intentionally try to make a mistake. I know from personal experience. It’s agonizing when you blow a call. It eats you up inside, especially early in your career, before you realize that it’s all part of growing and improving. Just like in sports, it’s all about how you bounce back and nail the next call.
Look, I’m a huge fan of Michaels and I’ve written about him in this column before. This is not a “make excuses for Al” piece. Michaels doesn’t need me to fight his battles. After the playoff game in January, the internet exploded and he doused the flames. Andrew Marchand of The New York Post reached out to Michaels to get his take.
He called it, “internet compost!” Michaels went on to say that he isn’t going to do a game for the “over-the-top YouTube hits.”
“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,” Al Michaels texted The Post earlier this year. “I’m in that corner, but there are others who obviously think otherwise.”
I tend to agree with him on the intentionally ‘over the top’ calls just to go viral, it doesn’t work for me either. Screaming unintelligible words or phrases does not make for a great call. But, I digress, let’s get back to what might have happened in the booth during Michaels’ call of the touchdown by Kirk.
Distance from the play can affect a call. What do I mean? Well, so many stadiums and teams are more concerned with making money, than helping broadcasters, be they local or national. I say most of that tongue-in-cheek, but it’s true. Broadcast vantage points have become ridiculous for calling games. Football broadcasts emanate from corners of the end zone now, rather than the 50-yard line.
Old-school broadcasters like to use their eyes, rather than the monitors in the booth to describe the action. So, based on where the vantage point was, it could have looked closer to being out of bounds than it actually was. To make it worse, folks watching at home had the true angle to see that it wasn’t close.
Remember, I’m simply pointing out possibilities on what could have happened up in the booth.
For those broadcasters who use the monitor to call the action, is there anything worse than that screen going blank on you? What do you do then? Trying to zoom your focus now to the field on a play that is already going on is not easy. There’s a delay in your brain, to first figure out what is happening, then picking up the action. I’ll bet if those “X” experts tried it, they would not do well.
These announcing jobs may look easy, but that’s only because of the extremely talented men and women who hold these positions. There’s so much more that goes into a broadcast than anyone at home can imagine.
One of the variables that is hard to understand, but happens from time to time, a producer or director inadvertently talks in your ear. Broadcasters’ headsets not only pick up the announcer’s and analyst’s voices but also have a channel for the producer or director to talk to them. This communication is not heard by the viewer, it’s internal and used to tell the announcers important things. Like, what replays the truck is going to show going to break.
The producer also counts the booth down to a commercial. For example, “going to break in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” so we know when to stop talking. It’s a distraction at times, especially if you aren’t expecting them to chat you up, especially during a play in progress. It does happen.
There’s also the possibility that you had a loss for words to describe what you are seeing. This doesn’t only happen to veteran broadcasters, trust me. In the course of a game, think about how many words you are hearing from the play-by-play announcer, many, right? Sometimes the words escape you, or sometimes you hear yourself saying things that don’t match the action.
Again, not excuses, just plain facts.
In one case, I will fight a battle for Michaels. I wrote about this before in this column about perceived biases by announcers. Jaguars fans think Michaels has a beef with their team because two recent incidents that have gained attention involved Jacksonville. Any national announcer will tell you that they don’t hate your team. Coincidence is what I would call it at this point. Announcers have enough work to do, preparing for a broadcast, to be able to say to themselves, ‘Hey how can I mess with the Jacksonville fans?” Al Michaels doesn’t hate your team.
Michaels is a well-decorated, highly respected play-by-play announcer. He’s called so many big moments in sports, whether it be Olympics, World Series, Super Bowls, or NBA Finals, Al Michaels has been there. I’m sure he will know in his heart of hearts when it is time to let go and move on to retirement. These jobs are very tough to leave. When it becomes your life, and what you are known for, saying goodbye can be difficult. I don’t think we’ve reached that point with Michaels. I don’t know what is in his mind when it comes to how much longer he wants to do this.
He has already proven to have thick skin. Not letting the internet rule his self-worth or confidence. Social media has given voice to fans and moments that take place within the framework of a game or broadcast get magnified to epic levels. Right or wrong, the groundswell is palpable.
Michaels has stayed above the fray and continues to be one that isn’t affected by what a few on the internet think of him and his broadcast ability. It’s a good lesson for younger broadcasters to learn, too. Trust in yourself, realizing mistakes will be made in your career. Learn from the stance older, more established broadcasters are taking.
Al Michaels is still broadcasting at a high level and if it was that bad, Amazon and the NFL would likely have intervened already to discuss the future. I don’t believe anything has been discussed, nor should it.
This notion of ‘losing something off his fastball’ is such a misnomer to me. Show me a veteran football, basketball, hockey, or baseball player who is the same player he/she was as a rookie. You can’t. Just because the fastball may not be as ‘fast’ these days, that’s when throwers become pitchers. Honing in on the entire repertoire but still featuring that 4-seamer. You aren’t young forever. But there are players and broadcasters who are still plugging along, doing what they do at levels many can only wish to reach. Nolan Ryan struck out 301 batters at age 42.
Fastball intact or not, don’t try to convince me that Al Michaels is all of a sudden bad at what he does. Is he the same announcer that he was at the World Series in 1989 when he went into newsman mode during the San Francisco Earthquake? No. But that’s not a bad thing.
Announcers evolve like professional athletes, because the game and profession change. Is he as fresh as he was at the 1980 Olympics? No. But it’s no miracle to me that Michaels is still a top-flight announcer.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
I think he’s excellent, as is Herbstreit. But together? Average. They don’t have chemistry, and Herbstreit doesn’t know the players, coaches, and front office folks as well to carry certain parts of the broadcast. Listen to the attempts at personal humor between them and the apparent effort to agree with each other. They are trying hard to show they are on the same page, but it’s just average to me. Even Herbstreit’s tone is subdued to match Michael’s energy, maybe. But, it’s great marketing and I am sure the ad department sells the crap out of it and the NFL likes the image of the pair. Good read.