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Al Michaels has covered a lot of sports throughout his five-decade career. He famously uttered, “Do you believe in miracles?” during the 1980 Winter Olympics ice hockey semifinal match between the United States and the Soviet Union.
He has also covered boxing world title fights, National Basketball Association games, and Major League Baseball World Series. Michaels is also the current play-by-play for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football. However, his recent call had football fans worried about the long-time sportscaster.
Al Michaels is getting mixed reactions from his lifeless Thursday Night Football work
Michaels was in the broadcast booth for the Week 7 Thursday Night Football game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New Orleans Saints. While it went down to the final possession, football fans believe Al Michaels’ energy did not match the game’s excitement.
His performance during the Jags-Saints game led one football fan to ask if he was okay:
Other fans who watched the contest gave unsatisfactory reviews for Al Michaels:
Two of Michaels’ calls caught the fan’s attention. The first was on the 17-yard touchdown run by Travis Etienne in the second quarter. He described the sequence as follows, while his voice stayed monotonous:
“From the 17-yard line. Little flip here. ETN, ETN takes it to the end zone. Touchdown.”
Then there was the 44-yard touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence to Christian Kirk, wherein Michaels thought the wide receiver went out of bounds. But from the video, Kirk crossed the goal line for what turned out to be the game-winning score.
Al Michaels’ play call has football fans wondering if he’s dealing with health issues. But if viewers thought he did a poor job, he can bounce back in Week 8 when the Buffalo Bills face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday Night Football.
Saints lost the game in the end zone
Derek Carr and the Saints had a chance to respond to Kirk’s touchdown catch. Scoring a touchdown and converting the extra point could have sent the game called by Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit to overtime. After starting from their 25-yard line, the Saints made it to Jacksonville’s six-yard line with 30 seconds left.
However, Dennis Allen’s crew was working on a third-and-six. Carr found a wide-open Foster Moreau at the end zone for what could have been an easy catch. However, Moreau couldn’t handle the ball, resulting in an incomplete pass.
The Saints had another shot, but Carr’s pass to Chris Olave went incomplete. The Jaguars escaped with a victory to remain undefeated on the road. Meanwhile, the Saints fall to 3-4, including a 1-2 home record.
